A success story of her own

PW grad and cancer survivor, Denise Jakows, sees her son Brooks Koepka become PGA champ

Go to a concert — you never know who you might see.

Go to the beach — you never know who you might bump into on the boardwalk.

Turn on a live sporting event — and you never know what face might pop out of the crowd.

That’s exactly what happened during the widely watched final round of last week’s PGA Championship from Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis.

Brooks Koepka won his second major championship of the year — and third in 14 months — and the 28-year-old from Florida was being crowned as the new superstar of the golf world.

The camera panned to his mother, awaiting the final putt to drop and the trophy to be hoisted.

Janet Farragut of Blue Bell is not a golf fan. She knew very little about Koepka. But she did recognize the face in the crowd.

“That’s Denise Jakows,” she exclaimed to her husband, Dan, who is an avid golf fan. “I went to high school with her.”

Jakows was a 1977 graduate of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School and went on to earn a degree in broadcast journalism at Temple University. She worked her way up through the minor leagues of the television world before landing a job as a news anchor at WPTV in West Palm Beach, Florida. She worked at the station from 1986 to 1999.

Jakows had already started her TV career when she met, and later married Bob Koepka. As a result, she never dropped her maiden name.

Bob and Denise later divorced but she raised her two boys, Brooks and Chase — both professional golfers. And now Brooks is, arguably, the best golfer in the world.

It hasn’t always been a success story. After leaving the television world Jakows had to reinvent her career and now works with a security company. In 2011 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent a double mastectomy, then survived a long treatment of chemotherapy.

At that time Brooks Koepka was playing golf at Florida State and won his first collegiate tournament, en route to becoming a three-time All-American. His celebration was short-lived, as he was delivered with the news that his mother had cancer on the day of his first collegiate triumph.

Ironically, before hearing the bad news, Koepka wore a pink shirt and a hat with a pink ribbon on it while playing in the tournament. He was honoring his college room-

mate’s mother, who was battling cancer. After receiving the shocking news, he wore that hat with the pink ribbon for the rest of the year.

Currently she is cancer-free, and enjoying life again. And especially enjoying the latest happenings on the PGA Tour.

Last year she returned to the area to attend the Plymouth Whitemarsh class reunion. Without the Koepka name, there were a number of others at the reunion, in addition to

Farragut, who had no idea about her famous golf connection.

“I’m sure that her closest friends new of the connection,” said Farragut. “But the majority of people in attendance had no idea she was the mother of a famous golfer.”

It will be difficult to keep her identity secret anymore.

Koepka is quickly joining the ranks of the very recognizable young brigade in golf — Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Ricky Fowler, Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas. No longer will he be able to attend a baseball game undetected, go to a movie

without being hounded for an autograph, eat dinner in a restaurant in peace.

And some of that same recognition will come to Jakows. Her emergence from the crowd to give a hug to her three-time major championship son was a made-for-television moment.

And why not? Jakows has plenty of experience in front of the TV camera. She may have enjoyed being in front of the camera in her former career, but there is nothing like being in front of the camera to give a hug to your son — who has just climbed one of golf’s highest mountains.