D.J.’s chance to catch Koepka just gone with the late wind

FA RM I NGDALE, N.Y.» The coronation of Brooks Koepka in this PGA Championship nearly got blown off the golf course.

It didn’t because his main competition, Dustin Johnson, had just as much trouble keeping his ball in play down the stretch.

Johnson was within one stroke of his close friend after a birdie on No. 15, a hole he birdied all four rounds. The 3 he shot added significant tension to what had looked like a runaway win by Koepka — until Koepka’s seven-shot lead and the way he was mastering the course disappeared in a flurry of bogeys on the back nine after a birdie at No. 10.

Two of the longest and strongest players on the PGA Tour struggled mightily with the swirling winds that at times reached 20 mph in some spots.

“I knew today, starting off, that it was going to play tough,” said Johnson, who wound up two shots behind

Koepka missed three straight fairways and made three straight bogeys, having to make a 6-foot putt on No. 11 to keep it from being worse. The wind was so fickle that it died as he hit 7-iron to the par-3 14th that sailed over the green, leading to a fourth straight bogey.

The crowd sensed a collapse, and began chanting, “DJ! DJ! DJ!” as Koepka was playing the hole. Ahead of him, Johnson made birdie on the 15th — the toughest hole at Bethpage Black all week — and the lead was down to one.

That was as close as Johnson got.

His 5-iron pierced through a wind that gusted close to 25 mph, over the green and into a buried lie. He missed the 7-foot par putt, went long of the green on the par-3 17th for another bogey and had to settle for 69.

“Hit the shot I wanted to right at the flag,” Johnson said of his 5-iron from 194 yards on the 16th. “I don’t know how it flew 200 yards into the wind like that.”

Johnson now has runnerup finishes in all four of the majors, the wrong kind of career Grand Slam.

“I gave it a run,” he said. “That’s all you can ask for.”

Koepka returned to No. 1 Koepka and will relinquish the No. 1 ranking to the winner. “You know, the wind was up. It was the most wind we’ve had all week.”

The gusts might have been at their worst on the 16th hole, where Koepka pretty much clinched his second straight PGA, his fourth major, and became the first player to hold two back-to-back major crowns at the same time.

Johnson was having what had been by far the best round of the day. He was at 8 under overall when his tee shot on 16 landed smack in the middle of the fairway. But from 194 yards, his 5iron approach caught a gust and soared over the green into nasty rough.

A nice chip out of that toward a flag whipping in the wind got Johnson to 7 feet, but he missed the putt.

“You know, wind was howling in my face a little bit off the right,” he said. “I hit a 5-iron but almost went back and got a 4-iron because I didn’t think the 5 was going to even come close, based on the shots in the world with a performance that defines his dominance in golf’s biggest events.

He becomes the first player to hold back-to-back titles in two majors at the same time, having won a second straight U.S. Open last summer 60 miles down the road at Shinnecock Hills. He was the first wireto-wire winner in the PGA Championship since Hal Sutton at Riviera in 1983.

And what stakes his claim as one of the best in his generation was a third straight year winning a major. He joins a most elite group — only Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer have done that since the Masters began in 1934.

He now has four majors in his last eight, a streak not seen since Woods won seven out of 11 when he captured the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.

Next up is the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where Koepka defends his title for the second time. No one has won the U.S. Open three straight years since Willie Anderson in 1905. No one will doubt whether Koepka is capable the way he is playing.

The 29-year-old Floridian is an imposing figure, a power off the tee and out of the rough with no obvious weakness in his game and the kind of mental fortitude that majors require. He needed all of it over the final that I’ve hit earlier in the round into the wind. The wind was just really eating the ball up when you’re hitting into it.

“So I tried to hit kind of like just a little low draw. Hit the shot I wanted to right at the flag. Just I don’t know how it flew 200 yards into the wind like that.”

His momentum was gone with the wind, and he also bogeyed the 17th after a tee shot well right into the rough beside the par-3 green. The wind again played a role.

Koepka, who was on the 15th fairway and knew from the crowd’s reaction that Johnson had dropped a shot, came to 16 having bogeyed four in a row, looking a bit worn and, perhaps for the first time in four days, sensing this was no cinch. He desperately needed to hit the fairway — something he did only six times all day — and did so. From 163 yards he put his ball 49 feet from the hole, providing more of a test. Koepka passed it by two-putting.

“Probably doesn’t sound hour of this one.

Koepka doesn’t know his resting heart rate, and he said on the eve of the final round that it probably was not much different on the first tee of a major than when he was chilling on his couch. But he could feel this one getting away from him. He could sense Johnson making a charge. He could hear it.

“How could you not with the ‘DJ’ chants,” Koepka said. “I heard everything.”

Bethpage has a reputation for being over the top, and it irritated Harold Varner III, who shot 81 playing in the final group.

“I thought it was pretty weird how they were telling Brooks to choke,” Varner said about the 14th hole. “That’s not my cup of tea. I was pulling for him after that.”

Koepka held it together at the most crucial moment. He piped his driver down the 15th fairway and twoputted for par. And he drilled another one into the 16th, which played the most difficult in the final round because it was into the wind.

Johnson hit 5-iron just over the green. The wind died enough 20 minutes later that Koepka hit 7-iron only to 50 feet and had another good lag putt to get par.

He kept it interesting to the end, three-putting the 17th as the lead went back to like much, but the putt on 16 I thought just gave me a little bit more confidence coming down the stretch,” Koepka said. “I know I missed one on 17, but you know, I think 16 helped me make 18.”

That was enough for the 29-year-old Koepka to hold on, denying Johnson a massive comeback for his second major title.

“With this golf course and this amount of wind, it’s very, very difficult,” Johnson said. “So I mean, it’s definitely one of the tougher days we’ve played in.

“Obviously I knew starting seven back that it was going to be a big feat to catch Brooks. You know, I definitely gave him a run, though, so I was happy with that.”

In the end, Koepka was the happiest, even if he hadn’t exactly conquered Bethpage Black — or the swirling wind — on Sunday.

“I mean, I challenge anybody to go play this golf course in 15- to 20 mile-anhour winds and see what they shoot,” he said. two shots, and pulling his driver on the 18th into fescue so thick it left him little choice but to lay up and scramble for par. Once his medium lob wedge settled 6 feet away, he could relax. Finally.

Woods won the Wanamaker Trophy in consecutive years twice, in 1999 and 2000, and again in 2006 and 2007. Koepka was starting to draw comparisons with Woods for the way he obliterated the competition, much like Woods in his 12shot victory in the 1997 Masters and 15-shot victory in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

Koepka tied the PGA Championship record by opening with a 63. He broke the major championship record for 36 holes at 128. He set another PGA Championship record with his seven-shot lead. In the end, just having his name on the heaviest championship trophy in golf was all that mattered.

Jordan Spieth registered his first top 10 since the British Open last summer with a 71 to finish at 2-under 278, six shots behind. He tied for third with Patrick Cantlay (71) and Matt Wallace (72).

This really was a twoman race over the back nine that not many would have seen coming at the start of the final round.

Only the outcome was expected.