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Rochester, NY – Ten seconds.
That’s all it took for Brooks Koepka to land the final shot at the PGA Championship.
As he played the 16th hole on Sunday, Koepka distanced himself from the rest of the packed field to the point where only one contender remained. He started the day with a shot in front of a frenzied chasing group; Now only Victor Hovland remains, 8 short of Koepka’s level 9.
Both players blocked their tee shots directly from the fairway, but Koepka just bunted the bunker and got caught in the bowl. Hovland settled down in dugout, where he told an embarrassing lie: the ball was under his feet and a high, barricaded lip was directly in his path. Things went sideways from there. His 9-iron never got close to the clearing and shot into the face of the bunker instead. The ball is embedded in the grass wall, staring at it again harshly, hoping for heroism suddenly half buried underground.
While Hovland spent the next several minutes trying to sort out how to take a break—he was entitled to relief from a deadpan lie but it was hard to tell where that relief was—Koepka stood motionless forward, occasionally glancing at his own. direction but mostly staring into the distance. In the end they sorted it out, Hovland fell into a bad lie in the open and had to cut sideways in the fairway.
Koepka’s kicker Ricky Elliott removed the wedge from his hands a few minutes after Hovland’s umpire, just to make sure the guy could reset it. Now he brought it back. And so, just 10 seconds after Hovland’s ball stopped, Kupka sent his power toward the green. It happened so quickly that the crowd was stunned. It happened so quickly that the cameras were not in the right position. It happened so quickly that it almost felt like a throwback, like a part of Koepka disappointed that the competition was over with two and a half holes to go.
Koepka loves it when golf reminds him of other sports, so let’s get there: This was a hockey player who slowly skated into an empty net to put his team into two teams. This was a basketball player who catches a bad pass and passes it as time runs out. This was a cornerback picking up an interception at the end of the game and savoring a few extra steps before taking a knee. The rough had tormented golfers all week, but it felt like an afterthought here; Koepka’s ball landed on the front of the green, chased toward the backpin and came to rest just four feet from the hole. game over.
Ten seconds is not a lot of time at all.
But Koepka had already waited too long.
his first boss He didn’t come early. Not at 21 like Jordan Spieth and not 22 like Rory McIlroy. But once Koepka won one — the 2017 US Open, as an under-the-radar 27-year-old bacher — the next few came very quickly. He beat Dustin Johnson at the 2018 US Open in Shinnecock. He beat Tiger Woods at the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive. Johnson stopped at the 2019 PGA at Bethpage. The big thing about the big leagues is that when you win one championship, people wonder if you’re going to win two. When you win 4 people wonder if you win 10.
But when you win 4, it’s not just hard to win 10. It’s hard to win five. Koepka earned his reputation as a cold-blooded relative, but in the years since, he’s scored a string of near misses. At the 2019 US Open Championship he finished as runner-up. At the 2020 PGA he talked about a big match but couldn’t back it up. Phil Mickelson stared him into the final group of the 2021 PGA, kicking off a year of nowhere: He finished in the top six at the next two majors as well. He was still a big game hunter. It just wasn’t deterministic.
Then came 2022, and with it came injury and poor play. As it turns out, things could get a lot worse than a tie for sixth place. In four major starts, Koepka scored two missed shots and two 55’s. Doubt devoured him. Athletes never know when the end will come; Could he have already arrived?
Netflix cameras followed Koepka in a particularly low-key moment in the wake of the Lost Masters cut. And suddenly the whole world saw Kopka without his shield; We saw how hard the struggle was and how desperately he longed to be back on top. He admitted that he “couldn’t compete.” He said he would give up all the money he won just to feel the main hero rush for another 10 minutes.
By the time he spoke to the media on Sunday, he had been back at the top of the mountain for at least half an hour. But he acknowledged that what full swing Show was very real. More than that: He was glad they did.
“I know I look like this big, bad, tough guy on the golf course who doesn’t smile, doesn’t do anything, but if you catch me off the golf course, I’ll let you know what’s going on,” he said. “Like, I’m glad they got this side; right? That’s really me, and some people might hate it, and some people might go after it, but at the end of the day, it’s just me.”
Just how bad is that? Koepka said he’s stopped making retirement plans, but…
“If I couldn’t play the way I wanted to play, I would definitely give it up,” he said. “I mean, it definitely kind of crossed my mind.”
Things are better – but also worse – at the Masters in April, when Koepka started Sunday four shots ahead of John Rahm but finished the day four shots behind. His health and form were very encouraging. But his last-round wilt was just the latest chapter in a trend that has been going on for years.
To his credit, Koepka didn’t shy away from the reality of what happened. He stared at him in the eye, trying to figure out why.
He said, “Look, I learned from her.” “I am very happy with what I took from him, and I am very happy with the honesty that I was able to dive in.”
Koepka and his best friend stayed up all night talking all day. His companion did not back down. Whatever lessons they settled on — Koepka won’t go into detail — they proved their worth on Sunday.
“He’s been texting me all last night about it and making sure I don’t fall into the same trap,” Koepka said.
you did not.
KOEPKA approach At No. 2 – a short iron 162 yards to four feet – set the tone for the day. A rocket from 212 yards to four feet on the next hole kept his lead. A wedge shot to nine feet on the fourth par-5 made it three in a row. Oak Hill was more receptive than he had been all week, but still: A captain wasn’t supposed to make things look so easy.
It is not, of course. Hovland matched his birdie at No. 4 and scratched a one-shot with a birdie at No. 5. Koepka then showed his first sign of weakness on the sixth tee, a driver cutting pressure into the bog down the right side. Another bogey at No. 7 kept Hovland inside one and brought in several chasers to play. Scotty Scheffler, Bryson Dechambeau and Rory McIlroy were within walking distance.
Koepka batted 10 but was conned 11. He birdied 12 but then saw the Hovland Birdie 13 – and drilled a 10-foot curling par for just to keep his one-stroke lead. He hit a powerful putt on the driveable par-4 14, exploiting his combination of power and accuracy and putting up an easy two-hit birdie. Then he and Hovland traded pars at 15, and set up the sudden killing putt at 16. Koepka was happy to get close and even happier to hit, a slippery hairball that fell down the middle, pushing his lead to four.
“I’m just glad someone got in. I think it was a little push,” he said, usually an understatement. “It gave me some ease going into 17, 18.”
All that remains is to plan the celebration. Tonight he is eager to go home. but tomorrow?
“I would like to say tomorrow with [Florida] Panthers, it’s probably a big tailgate,” he said. “Long afternoon.”
KOEPKA was relevant To put this into full perspective shortly after the final blow fell. He said he would need 2 days. Later changed that to a week. But it was evident that his mind was already processing in real time. He was grateful to his doctors. to his family. to his tray.
“I felt bad for him because he’s been stuck there with me for a while,” Koepka said of Elliott. “He’s tired of me; I’m tired of him. I don’t know if he gets enough credit for being as good at caddies as he is. It’s a lot about reading people, reading your player, knowing what they’re going to do before they do it, and kind of feeling the moment What should be said, and what should not be said.
It was also evident that this meant a lot because of how hard it had been since the last time.
“Excuse my language,” he said, “but it’s all there—I had to keep going.” “No one knows. No one knows, I guess, all the pain. There are so many times I couldn’t even bend my knee.”
Much of Koepka’s win will go down as the first major title for an active LIV golfer. This is important to the professional golf scene, but that felt like a footnote in the face of what it meant for Koepka.
“Yeah, I definitely think it helps LIV, but I’m more interested in myself now, to be honest with you,” he said. This isn’t his only recent win; He was the first LIV pro to win twice on the startup circuit. But Koepka has always echoed his childhood hero, Tiger Woods, in putting big business above all else. Now he’s back.
He said, “This is probably the sweetest of them all because all the hard work that went into.” He later said it more succinctly. He’s never been one to waste time, after all.
“I’m back. I’m here.”