KOEPKA AIMS TO MAKE U.S. OPEN HISTORY.
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — He’s the best player in the world who can still hide in plain sight.
But maybe not for too much longer.
Brooks Koepka at his best is, well, just better than anyone else in golf these days. He has won four of the past eight majors and is about to take on a slice of history this week as he tees it up in search of a third consecutive U.S. Open starting Thursday.
The man with killer shoulders and biceps, the man who the world seems to see as a guy better suited to playing in the NFL, the man who turns heads every time he walks into a room.
And while folks can’t stop staring, a lot of them can’t quite put their finger on who he is.
“I still think it’s weird when I walk into a place and I can see eyes are on me just for dinner,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘What’s everybody staring at?’
“I just view myself as a regular guy, just like everybody else. And I just happen to be really good at golf, and that’s it.”
Even after winning backto-back U.S. Opens and back-to-back PGA Championships, Koepka still flies under the world’s radar. Something Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson — to name three other golfers — simply can’t.
Three decades ago, Kopeka would have been
the storyline going into the U.S. Open. Today, the world No. 1 is just one of many.
Can Tiger run away with another U.S. Open at Pebble and win his 16th major — and second this year —at 43? Is McIlroy, after an amazing Sunday in Canada, on a collision course with another major? Will Johnson overpower the course once again — this time with a USGA setup?
And, oh, right. BK is just the guy trying to become the first player since Willie Anderson in 1903, 1904 and 1905 to win three U.S. Opens in a row. Anderson won it in 1901, too.
Living in the moment
Koepka hasn’t even so much as run Anderson’s name through Google.
“About Willie Anderson ...” Koepka said Tuesday, “it’s funny, we were in Scotland, I think it was last year, and we saw his name on a building I guess where he used to live or something like that, which is pretty cool. But I don’t know too much about him.
“Obviously that was a long, long time ago. What was it, a hundred years? Hundred-and-some years?”
That would be 114. But who’s counting?
“I haven’t talked to anybody about going three in a row,” Koepka said. “I’m not thinking about it. I know the odds are stacked up probably even more against me now to go three in a row than to back it up. It’s hard to win the same event three times in a row. I don’t know how many times it’s even been done on the PGA Tour, let alone a major championship.”
The last modern-day player with a shot to win three U.S. Opens in a row was Curtis Strange, who after winning in 1988 and 1989, tied for 21st in 1990. And he knows what Koepka faces this week.
“It’s all amped up for him a little bit,” said Strange, a member of this week’s Fox broadcast team, told pgatour.com. “But he looks like he’s the guy of all guys who can handle it, because he’s low key.
“We don’t know what goes on inside him, but it certainly appears as he’s a one shot, one round, one tournament at a time type of guy.”
Koepka is indeed a hereand-now guy. The 29-yearold Floridian has a wry sense of humor and pragmatic approach to the game and life. He has a smile and an honest, thoughtful way of answering whatever question is tossed his way.
The last thing he searched on Google? (Yes, someone asked.) The answer was yesterday, and the subject was how to change his phone number. He had gotten some interesting text messages and phone calls and, well, it was time to change his number.
He readily admits to playing with a bit of a chip on his shoulder but also knows when to laugh. He still digs Fox broadcaster Joe Buck for mixing up girlfriend Jena Sims with his former girlfriend Becky Edwards when he won the 2017 U.S. Open.
Before the PGA, he wasn’t too happy with Golf Channel analyst and former Tour player Brandel Chamblee for questioning his toughness.
And Tuesday he admitted to being miffed about a U.S. Open promo from Fox that didn’t include him. He said he found out when people tagged him on Twitter with a link to the promo.
“I clicked on the link and watched it,”’ Koepka said. “Just kind of shocked. They’ve had over a year to kind of put it out. So I don’t know. Somebody probably got fired over it or should.”
He laughed. But the perceived slight is one of several he mentioned including being left off the “notables” page for the 2018 U.S. Open when he was defending champion. Hence, the chip.
The more we learn about Koepka, the more interesting he becomes.
He doesn’t pull any punches when he admits there are only a handful of players in every field who can win a major and one of them usually does. Chip and all, he prepares for and embraces the big stage better than anyone, save Tiger, in the last two decades.
Evidence? Just look at the past two PGAs. He held off Woods to win the 2018 PGA, then held off Johnson last month at Bethpage.
The latter is where he learned something about himself that just made him even tougher on the major stage. When he bogeyed four straight holes in the final round and saw his six-shot lead over Johnson close to one, he found a way to reset his focus and turn a negative, he said, into a positive.
“Walking to that 15th tee you could be very upset,” he said. “I could have pouted about it. I could have done a million different things. But instead just turned that into — I’ve still got a one-shot lead. DJ has to make something happen if he wants to catch me.
“I was actually really proud of myself the way I spun that mentally. … And hit great shots coming down the stretch, especially when I needed to, finding fairways on 15, 16, being straight into that wind.”
He won by two.
A mentally taxing task
Yet that mental turnaround is exactly what a player needs at any major, especially an Open where the setup all too often takes down some of the game’s best.
“It’s definitely a big advantage,” Koepka said. “I mean, we all know in U.S. Opens you could be 4 over through four very easily. And you look at it like this week, you get off to a tough start, and all of a sudden, I’ve got to reset.
“And now I know how to do that under pressure. I know how to do that and really handle myself and kind of right the ship. I think that’s going to be important going forward. I was lucky enough to win it. But a U.S. Open is a different test.”
After winning the PGA, the man who is a good friend of Astros owner Jim Crane and is consulting on the redo of Memorial Park, just decompressed. He put down the clubs and hung out with friends and family at home, then flew to the Bahamas.
“I don’t think people realize how mentally tiring a major championship is,” Koepka said. “It’s very tough. Physically it’s fine, but mentally you’re just absolutely drained come Sunday night, Monday. And just trying to recoup mentally.
“I don’t need to play golf every day. I’d rather show up mentally fresh than to be playing great and mentally tired.”
This week? He’s treating it like any other week. Yet it’s another big stage and, as we know, he excels in performing on them. During the week, he leaves golf at the course, choosing to spend his downtime watching the NBA Finals or Stanley Cup and talking about anything but golf.
And on the course? He’s all business — the kind that says, simply, don’t mess with me.
“Everybody knows he’s very cool, calm, collected,” Justin Thomas said. “He’s got one of the best swaggers out here, especially when he’s playing well. He’s obviously very confident. And he’s been the most accomplished player the last two years.”
Good enough to threepeat? He’s not biting. All he sees is being good enough to be the best player at Pebble Beach come Sunday night.
“It’s just another golf tournament,” Koepka said. “I have to go out and do what I’m supposed to do. And it’s going to be a tough test this week. We all know that.” Melanie Hauser, a former sportswriter for the Houston Post, writes a weekly column sponsored by the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. A version of this story first appeared at txsportsnation.com, the Chronicle’s all-sports website. Sign up tor the newsletter at chron.com/newsletter