Success at home sweet for Koepka
Before their names shared space on the silver U.S. Open trophy, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth were together in a less attractive location.
Both failed by three shots to advance out of the second stage of qualifying school, leaving them with no status on any golf tour. That was five years ago, and each went his own way.
Spieth, a U.S. Junior Amateur champion who won an NCAA title with Texas, received sponsor exemptions to PGA Tour and Web. com Tour events and rode a runner-up finish in the Puerto Rico Open to a meteoric year that ended with him on the 2013 Presidents Cup team at age 20.
Koepka began filling his passport.
One three-week stretch on the Challenge Tour in 2013 took him from India to South Africa to Kenya. He played in Kazakhstan and Madeira Island, Finland and Belgium. He won in Italy and Spain, and he was on the verge of a third victory, in Scotland, that would earn him graduation to the European Tour.
And he was ready to come home. He called Blake Smith, his manager, and told him, “I don’t even want to play.” “I don’t want to say
I was just tired of golf. Tired of traveling,” Koepka said. “I just wanted to be home, even though I was about to win the third one.”
He stayed and he won. And then he traveled to London the next morning and qualified for the British Open on two hours’ sleep.
All of which made his U.S. Open victory Sunday all the more special.
Koepka can’t count the miles he traveled after leaving Florida State, but he wouldn’t trade the path that led him to a major championship at age 27.
“I think it helped me grow up and figure out that, ‘Hey, play golf, get it done and then you can really take this somewhere.’ And I built a lot of confidence off that,” Koepka said.
Those who saw him couldn’t ignore the sheer athleticism, raw power and quiet confidence.
Still, there have been times in Koepka’s career where he felt irritation about not winning as much as he felt he should. Koepka won the Turkish Airlines Open in 2014 over the likes of Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson. Three months later, he powered his way to his first PGA Tour victory, at the Phoenix Open.
Before this weekend, though, that had been it on big stages, though he did well for the U.S. Ryder Cup team last year, going 3-1 in four matches.
“I’d won once on the PGA Tour, once on the European Tour,” Koepka said. “I just felt like I should be winning more. … It’s one of those things, (I’m) not a big fan of losing. I don’t think anyone out here is. And I couldn’t stand the fact that I’d only won once.”
He beat everyone at Erin Hills, though, and in the end, it wasn’t even close.
“I kept telling people last year after the Ryder Cup, when Brooks figures out how good he is, he’s going to be a world-beater,” Brandt Snedeker said.
Florida State converted three walks, two infield singles and a double into three runs to take the lead in the seventh inning, and the Seminoles knocked Cal State Fullerton out of the College World Series. The Seminoles (46-22) will play another elimination game Wednesday against the loser of the Oregon State-LSU game Monday night. Fullerton (39-24) has gone two games and out in four straight CWS appearances and has lost nine games in a row in Omaha. The Seminoles went ahead against three Fullerton pitchers, with the tying and go-ahead runs scoring on back-to-back walks by Blake Workman.