The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
KOEPKA SETS SIGHTS ON THIRD STRAIGHT PGA
The list of failed attempts is much longer than the six men who actually won the same major backto-back-to-back.
That’s why the biggest challenge facing Brooks Koepka as he goes for a third straight PGA Championship this week at the TPC Harding Park in San Francisco is more about history than his troublesome left knee and recent form.
No one has done what he’s attempting in 64 years.
“I just want to play good golf. It’s simple,” Koepka said when he went to Bay Area in February to preview a PGA Championship that was supposed to be held in May before the COVID-19 pandemic upended golf ’s calendar.
“You start thinking about all the things that could happen, that’s when nerve, everything else kind of creeps in. Just stay in the moment and keep plugging along.”
Koepka already has had one crack at a three-peat and showed why he can’t be overlooked. Trying to become the first player in more than a century to win the U.S. Open three straight times, he chased Gary Woodland all the way to the finish line at Pebble Beach and finished second.
Then it was all about Willie Anderson, the only player to win three straight U.S. Opens. Now it’s about Walter Hagen, who won the PGA Championship four straight times (1924-27) when it was match play. (Peter Thomson won three straight British Opens in 1954-56.)
“Walter Hagen is a name every golf fan knows,” Koepka said. “To even have a chance to put my name with his would be incredible. ... Two-time defending, it’s a different feeling, and one you want to win this year.”
Koepka won a thriller at Bellerive in 2018, when he set the PGA Championship scoring record at 264 and matched the lowest score at any major. He nearly blew a seven-shot lead last year at Bethpage Black before winning by two.
But this isn’t the same player. Koepka had stem cell treatment after last season because of a partially torn patella. Two weeks later, he slipped on a wet slab of concrete at the CJ Cup in South Korea and injured his left knee further, keeping him out for three months. And then he lost another three months to the pandemic.
He has gone a year without winning. Last week at the World Golf Championship, he was tied for the lead until hitting into the water off the tee on the final hole as Justin Thomas won.
Tiger Woods has won at least three straight times at four PGA Tour events — three in a row at Firestone and Memorial, four in a row at Torrey Pines and Bay Hill. Just not in the majors.