Koepka’s eyes are always on the prize

If that makes serial winner boring, so what?

Boring? Unpopular? Yes, that was the perception of Ben Hogan in the 1950s when he gave autograph seekers an icy stare and took out the sweet-swinging Sam Snead.

That was the fate of Jack nicklaus when he was beating the charismatic Arnold Palmer in the 1960s. ‘it was simply awful the way his shots would get a tenth of the applause of Arnie’s,’ recalled gary Player recently.

When it was Jack’s turn to play, the fans standing in the heavy rough would hold up signs saying: ‘Hit it here, fat boy’.

it was also the fate of Sir nick Faldo in the 1980s whenever he was compared to Severiano Ballesteros or greg norman, and the fate of Tiger Woods at Bethpage in the 2002 US open when he defeated Phil Mickelson.

So, Brooks Koepka didn’t just join the legends of the game on the honours board with his fourth major victory in two years following an epic final round at the US PgA Championship on Sunday. He’s also acquired a couple of tags that have so often befallen the game’s serial champions.

The fact is, winning golf can be quite boring for the casual fan. At Bethpage, the idea is to find the fairway, find the green and two-putt. What is so exciting about that?

Winning golf is also about having tunnel vision, and there’s nothing appealing about a man who can’t see the fans, as Tiger couldn’t in his heyday, and stares straight ahead. Koepka showed he is cut from the same cloth when he gave his girlfriend Jena Sims the brush-off as she moved in for a kiss as they arrived before the final round.

The irony of the final day is that Koepka made it very exciting because, for a while, he played anything but winning golf.

He had four bogeys in a row as his seven-shot lead at the start dwindled to just one, and the new Yorkers reacted like they do when the Yankees lose four games in a row. They gave him hell.

‘DJ! DJ!’ they screamed in his face as Dustin Johnson made his charge. ‘You’re a choker,’ was heard more than once. Koepka’s reaction afterwards was that of a born winner. He didn’t complain.

‘i kind of deserved it,’ he said, in plain disgust at his scorecard. ‘i couldn’t tell you the last time i had four bogeys in a row.’

if anything, the fact he went on to win was perhaps more impressive than if it had been supposedly boring and he’d won by ten. He showed he can dig deep in the dirt as well as flat outplay everyone.

‘Four majors out of the last eight he’s played? i’d call that dominance,’ said Faldo. ‘He’s just achieved what Tiger, Jack and Hogan did, and if i was him, i’d get a plaque listing that achievement and stare at it every day.’

it is true Koepka isn’t the most exciting interviewee but then none of the winners were in their prime.

Faldo certainly wasn’t, nor Tiger, while nicklaus used to stare at reporters with contempt if he didn’t like the question.

For true fans, of course, winning golf is not boring at all. They love watching a man with the skillset to take on a flag located in a sucker position but the humility to play for the fat of the green, as Tiger did over the last seven holes at Augusta last month.

‘i don’t understand why Brooks doesn’t do it more often,’ said rory Mcilroy, quite reasonably given Koepka’s record of four major wins and just two other PgA Tour victories.

But there’s also something refreshing about a man with eyes solely on the bigger picture, who’s only truly bothered about the four prizes that matter the most.

‘i don’t see why i can’t get to double digits for majors,’ said Koepka blithely in the build-up to this latest one.

good for him. give me the boring man any day with the limitless ambition to train his sights on the moon.