‘DISASTER LURKING’
Koepka undaunted in quest for PGA Championship three-peat
The PGA Championship will be held in San Francisco and, well, this may be the eeriest major golf tournament in a long time, with no galleries to provide adrenaline at the moment a player might need it most.
But does it feel like a major? Brooks Koepka says it does, fans or no fans, and that may be bad news for the rest of the field.
“It’s pretty obvious it’s a major when you pull in,” Koepka said on a pre-tournament Zoom conference this week, when asked if he might have to convince himself it was a major atmosphere without fans. “I don’t know how else to answer that. It’s pretty obvious it’s a major. It’s a big boy golf course. Tough place. Tough setup. I mean, I know it, so that’s all that matters.”
For perspective, in case you’ve forgotten: Koepka, the 30-year-old from Florida State, has seven PGA Tour victories
in eight years on tour. Four of them are majors: PGA Championships in 2018 and 2019, and U.S. Opens in 2017 and ’18.
He was denied a U.S. Open three-peat last year when Gary Woodland finished three shots ahead of him, even though Koepka fired a finalround 68. Since then, he’s had knee surgery, has dealt with a pandemic-induced layoff like everyone else, and before last weekend in Memphis there were questions about whether he was major-ready.
Then he fired a final-round 65 and finished tied for second in the St. Jude Invitational. He was tied for the lead with Justin Thomas after 15 holes on the final day, was a stroke back after an improbable birdie on 17 and might have stolen it but for a double bogey on 18, when he went aggressive from the tee and landed in the water.
There’s no reason, then, to think he’s not ready to chase a feat that has been achieved only once before in the PGA Championship. The legendary Walter Hagen won four in a row, actually, in 1924, ’25, ’26 and ’27, when it was a match play event. Only two other golfers since 1900 have won a major three times in a row: Willie Anderson in the 1903, ’04 and ’05 U.S. Opens, and Australia’s Peter Thomson in the 1954, ’55 and ’56 British Opens.
“It would be a hell of an accomplishment,” said former player and current ESPN analyst Curtis Strange a week ago, before Koepka’s run in Memphis. “He’s certainly more than capable. Hasn’t been playing his best; who knows about the knee. Nobody knows anything about that kind of stuff other than him himself. But it’s just, you go with current form ... he’s certainly capable of doing it, without a doubt.”
It is the first major in 11 months, or since the 2019 British Open. Thanks to the pandemic, and the sports shutdown that resulted, the PGA is back in the August slot it had held before 2019, but it’s now the first major of the year.
And it comes with a tightly bunched field atop the world rankings. Koepka received a trophy following his media availability Tuesday for residing at the No. 1 spot 33 weeks last year, the most of anyone. Justin Thomas took over No. 1 this week from Jon Rahm, with Rory McIlroy third; the order last week was RahmMcIlroy-Thomas. Before that McIlroy had held the No. 1 spot since Feb. 9, including the three months in which the sport sat idle, and before that it had been Koepka for the first five weeks of 2020.
“I think we are in an era right now where it’s going to be hard to have somebody distance themselves,” Rahm said during his Zoom conference Tuesday. “When you have so many great players playing who go out at the same time, at any given point for two or three months one of us can get hot and take the No. 1 spot. I think we might be entering an era where we bounce back and forth.”
Koepka is eager to be part of that mix again. Before Memphis, in the five tournaments held since the tour returned, he had a seventh in the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head, S.C., in mid-June, but followed that with two missed cuts sandwiched around a tie for 62nd at the Memorial.
“It gets frustrating,” he said. “I felt like I was playing a little better. Wasn’t seeing the results, but piece by piece, it was coming. So I knew it was eventually going to be there. But as far as confidence, I got frustrated. I think anybody would. Nobody likes playing bad.
“But at the same time I knew it was only a couple swings away. Once I got the feeling, I’d be off and running, and here we are.”
It’s not that the rest of the field is saying “uh-oh.” There are plenty of men in this field capable of winning this week in what figures to be chilly and moist conditions — along with, presumably, the typically diabolic course setup for a major — at Harding Park, a public course located in the southwest portion of the city and not far from the Pacific Ocean.
“I love the fact that it’s probably the toughest test of golf you’re going to play all year — setup wise, and then mentally it’s exhausting,” Koepka said. “I enjoy when it gets tough. I enjoy when things get complicated. There’s always disaster lurking. I think it’s something I enjoy, where every shot really means something. You can’t lose focus on one, and I think that’s something I’m really proud of, that I can always just hang in there mentally and hit the shot that I need to hit at the right time, and don’t (ease) off the gas pedal.”
Koepka reiterated something he said before last year’s PGA, that majors are the easiest tournaments to win. Obviously, not everyone can say that, but here’s his theory: The course layout will take out half of the field, half of the others won’t play well, and he figures he has a mental edge over the rest.
“You’ve probably got 10 guys” to worry about, he said. “If I can do what I’m supposed to, then yeah, I should (win).
“I think that’s why I’ve played so well, I break things down pretty easily. I think for some reason people make golf a lot more complicated than it should be. Worried about where shots go, results, putting more emphasis on this week or the major weeks. To me, it almost seems like the most relaxing week of the year.”
So if you’re thinking the pressure to achieve a threepeat will wear him down, think again. Remember, he’s already been through it.
“I don’t put any expectations on myself,” he said. “Just go out and go play golf exactly like I know how, and if I do that, then yeah, I probably should win.”