If Jack Nicklaus says it qualifies as "one of the best major years" then you can be sure that it is ‘one of the best major years’. This was just one of the giddy tributes Brooks Koepka received in the wake of adding the USPGA crown to that of the US Open, which he defended successfully in June.
Koepka’s two-shot win here at Bellerive over none other than Tiger Woods saw him join an exclusive club of those who had previously achieved this double - Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Nicklaus and Woods. But what really made Nicklaus sit up and take notice is that the 28-year-old missed the Masters in April through injury so in fact he won two-thirds of the 2018 majors in which he competed.
"For Brooks to not play the Masters because of injury, to be unsure of his near future in golf, then to come back and win the US Open and PGA Championship - to return and win two of the three majors left in the year - you have to believe its one of the best years any golfer has ever had!" Nicklaus tweeted.
Nicklaus was also complimentary about Woods, declaring that he should be picked for the US Ryder Cup team which next month will try to win on European soil for the first time in 25 years. But the 18-time major winner reserved the highest praise for Koepka, the 28-year-old who had risen to world No 2, despite only winning five top flight titles in total, including his trio of majors.
As motivation goes, a Yorkshireman yelling in your face “go and become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world” might not be in any American golf textbooks. But for Brooks Koepka, Pete Cowen’s tough-love routine, as well as a mysterious horse chiroptarctor, are two of the factors which has helped the 28-year-old American earn the status of the most dominant force in the game.
On Sunday at Bellerive, Koepka put on a nerveless display to hold off the fast-finishing Tiger Woods and so deny the icon his fairytale comeback win. In doing so, Koepka became just the fifth player to complete the US Open, USPGA double in the same season, following Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. The manner in which he eased to his third triumph in his last six majors highlighted a cold, clinical winner, although interestingly Cowen reveals this was not the case until the start of his run.
“I gave him a huge bollocking on the Tuesday of Erin Hills [at last year’s US Open],” Cowen told Telegraph Sport. “I followed him around at Memphis the week before and his body language was awful. He was caught in a run of seconds and he was saying ‘I’ll never win’. It was all a bit “poor me’, to be honest.
OBSERVATIONS
SCOTT GOES DOWN SWINGING … Between 2011 and 2015 Adam Scott finished in the top 15 in 15 of 20 major championships starts – including his iconic win at the 2013 Masters.
In his last 11 majors before this week at Bellerive Country Club Scott had just one – a T9 at the 2017 Masters.
His 2017-18 PGA TOUR season had yielded just one top 10 – a T9 at the AT&T Byron Nelson – and he had slipped to a lowly 119th in the FedExCup to be in serious danger of missing the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time.
But with four holes to go at the PGA Championship on Sunday the Australian was tied for the lead with Brooks Koepka and eyeing what would have been an extremely emotional win in the week good friend Jarrod Lyle passed away from his near 20-year battle with cancer.
Sadly he just couldn’t make the clutch putts when they mattered down the stretch despite having a really good week on the greens (19th Strokes Gained: Putting).
He’d made five birdies in a seven-hole run from the seventh to the 13th before the well dried up.
A 19-foot birdie try on the 14th and a 16-foot birdie effort on the 15th failed to find the mark and then an impressive chip from off the 16th green barely missed dropping in.
“Brooks had chances on those couple of holes and missed, and I had chances and made them and got myself right in there. I had all the momentum, I felt, at that point, and didn't make my putts on the next two holes,” Scott lamented.
“Not that they were gimmes, by any means, but I hit pretty good putts, especially on 15. I thought that one was going to go in. And then Brooks hit it very close on 16 after making his on 15, and I was kind of up against it from there.”
Koepka dropped in two birdies to create a buffer.
The American opened the door slightly with a par on the par-5 17th but Scott couldn’t get his 6-footer to stay high enough.
From there he was spent and after trying to force the issue made a closing bogey to shoot 3-under 67.
“I'm pretty disappointed with myself that I couldn't play the last three holes better than I did,” Scott said.
“It is hard to rationalize everything after leading with four holes to play and you want to win from that position. And I feel like I've led a lot of majors with four holes to play and not won them.
“So there's always things to work on when you're not the winner. I certainly want to keep improving. I can't stop here. I'd like to play really well the next few weeks in the Playoffs and try and make a run all the way through and then take some satisfaction out of this year.”
Scott moved to 70th in the FedExCup with result ensuring he will almost certainly be at at least the first two of four FedExCup Playoff events.
STEWART CINK … Since winning The Open Championship in 2009 Stewart Cink had missed the cut in 11 of 25 major championships and had failed to post a top-10 finish in any of them.
But the 45-year-old six-time PGA TOUR winner has been in sneaky form this summer and produced a vintage week at Bellerive.
Rounds of 67-69-66-67 left Cink in a tie for fourth at 11 under par.
His low round of the week came paired with Tiger Woods on Saturday amongst an enormous gallery.
It is Cink’s third top-10 on the PGA TOUR since June coupled with his T4 at the FedEx St. Jude Classic and a T2 at the Travelers Championship.
“After yesterday's round with Tiger, it felt like a practice round, even though you're playing the final round of a major with a top-10 player in the world and the group in front of Tiger,” Cink said of his final round with Jason Day.
“It was still pretty intense out there. The heat was big. I had some focus moments where I kind of fell asleep a bit, missed some really short putts, which is unfortunate and uncharacteristic.
“But overall, I was really proud of the way I hung in there. I handled myself really well and kept pressing, and I'm going to come up short here, but it was a really good, solid week for me overall.”
Cink moved to 55th in the FedExCup standings as he looks to chase his first TOUR Championship berth since 2009.
ST. LOUIS -- Brooks Koepka is a tough guy to miss. He's the one with the million-dollar smile, steal-yo-girl biceps and the mightiest swing in golf. He's built like Ben Watson, but he putts like Ben Crenshaw. The next time he's rattled will be the first. He's now won three of the past six majors he's entered and joined some elite company in the three-major club (more on that in a minute).
And yet, despite all of that, I'm afraid somehow we have missed him.
Koepka held off -- I can't believe I'm typing these words -- a 64 from Tiger Woods on Sunday at a major championship and hoisted yet another major trophy at the end of the week. After two bogeys in his first five holes, he played the final 13 flawlessly with five birdies and a closing 66 to win by two. All of this with Woods doing his thing ahead of him.
"You could hear the roars when we were on 10 and 11, and then you could kind of hear it trickle down as they changed the leaderboards all the way through," said Koepka. "You could hear a different roar like every 30 seconds. So we knew what was going on. It's pretty obvious when Tiger makes a birdie. I think everybody at the golf course cheers for him. I'm sure everyone is rooting for him."
Tiger's 64, though remarkable, wasn't enough to catch Koepka. A 62 would have put him in a playoff. It would have taken a 61 from Big Cat for the outright win.
Brooks Koepka kind of flexed on Tiger Woods (of all people) on a Sunday at a major championship.
In what felt like the blink of an eye, Koepka went from one-time PGA Tour winner to three-time major champion. And the majors weren't a joke. He took down Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood at Erin Hills; Dustin Johnson and Fleetwood at Shinnecock Hills; and then, in maybe his finest work, Adam Scott and Tiger Woods in the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club.
"I remember when I watched Adam win at the Players. I loved his golf swing. He's got the best golf swing ever, I think. It's so pretty to watch. He's one of the nicest guys once you meet him, too. He really is," Koepka said. "And then, I mean, Tiger for obvious reasons. As a kid growing up, that's the whole reason that all of us, or people in my generation, are even playing golf was because of him. And to duel it out with them, it's pretty neat. I don't think I ever dreamed of that, that situation that I was in today.
"It really is surreal. It's really cool."
No category exists for a golfer whose four wins include three majors, all before his 30th birthday. We don't know what to do with that. I'll struggle to figure this out for the rest of 2018 and into 2019. It is irreconcilable that someone could win three of his first 20 major starts but only one of his first 80 non-major starts on the PGA Tour.
I suppose we should start with what we know:
Koepka has joined Woods, Jordan Spieth, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus as the only Americans with three majors by the age of 28 since World War II.
Koepka has joined Woods, Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan as the only golfers to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same year.
Koepka joined Spieth and Rory McIlroy as the only golfers to win multiple majors in a single season over the past decade.
Koepka has won three of his past six majors and finished in the top 15 a stunning 11 (!) times at majors since 2014.
And he didn't even play this year's Masters because of an injury.
"Three majors at 28," said Koepka. "It's a cool feeling. It really is. You know, hopefully I can stay healthy. I've kind of had some trouble with that over the past two years, three years, whatever it was. Missed the British [Open] and then to miss Augusta. You know, I think I'm much more disciplined now, so I should be able to play every major, making sure my body's healthy."
Maybe for now we can think of Koepka the way baseball thought of John Smoltz. The former Braves pitcher was terrific in the regular season. A Hall of Fame pitcher. And he was even better in the playoffs. It's easy to deride athletes who show up big in big moments but don't perform when the chips are up. Why don't you do that all time? Even they struggle to explain it.
"For some reason, I can really tune in in the majors, and I have no idea why," said Koepka earlier in the week. "They really get my attention."
Now he has our attention. Koepka wasn't hard to miss before. He clubs the ball and picks off trophies -- big ones, not middling ones or plates or medals. He collects. He has done so at an historical rate thus far, and now we're staring at a bizarre scenario in which Koepka could legitimately win as many or more majors than he does normal PGA Tour events.
"I would think [my game] suits the majors, having won three of the last six I've played in. So I guess [it] suits them. Need to figure out Augusta a little bit, haven't quite had the results there that I've had elsewhere. But this golf course set up beautifully for me," Koepka said. "I'm looking forward to the next few years. If I can stay healthy and actually show up to a major, I feel like I've got a good chance."
In some ways, this is fitting. Koepka's game is as impossible as his resume. He pounds the horizon with his fists and then releases preposterous chip shots with the delicateness of a man half his size. It doesn't compute that the man who led the PGA Championship in driving distance and finished second from tee to green would also finish top 20 in putting. That's not a fluke, either. It's who he is, and it's a harbinger for what the future looks like, too.
"I'm excited for the next few years," said Koepka. "As fans, like, I'm a fan of golf. You should be excited. I mean, Tiger's come back. You look at what Dustin's doing, Justin [Thomas], Rory, Spieth ... I mean, it's a great time to be a golf fan. I can't wait to duel it out with them."
