A WINNING TRADITION

Perhaps some of Koepka’s knack for winning has been inherited, as his Uncle Dick—brother to Koepka’s late grandmother Mary—is Dick Groat, who was one of the best batting shortstops to play Major League Baseball. An All-American college baseball and basketball star at Duke before playing for his local Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1950s and early 1960s, Groat [pictured below in 1960] was key to the Pirates’ World Series success in 1960 and was named National League MVP that year with a leagueleading batting average of .325. In 2018, Pittsburgh City Council even declared June 12 “Dick Groat Day”.

A keen golfer, 88-year-old Groat owns the Champion Lakes Golf Course in Ligonier, less than 20 miles to the east of Arnold Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe, where a young Koepka would often play. Groat was a year younger than Palmer and they became good friends. They had a lot in common as the greatest pro sportsmen of their generation to come out of Western Pennsylvania (and arguably the greatest of all time), and in 1963 the pair played together in the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach.