The last time we got a post-Masters vote from Brooks Koepka, it resulted in his fifth major championship victory, a narrow victory over Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland at Oak Hill for his third PGA Championship. This happened 51 weeks ago.
On Sunday, Koepka revealed a different promise he made after this year’s Masters.
“I think I’ve played back-to-back in the PGA and the U.S. Open,” he said. “I hope to do it again. I don’t know if it’s been done before, but it would be a cool thing. I tried to do a three-peat. It’s not very good at that here and in the majors. I think the embarrassment of Augusta [National] it really sped things up for me and I really had to put my nose down and work a little harder and have to look my team in the eye and apologize. I don’t plan on doing that again.”
That routine led to a top-10 finish at LIV Golf Adelaide and his fourth victory on that tour, a two-stroke victory over Cam Smith and Marc Leishman at LIV Golf Singapore. In his last two tournaments since the Masters, Koepka has only been defeated by eight golfers total; now, he carries a trophy for the second of four major championships this year.
Will all of this – this renewed focus and tough attitude – result in a sixth main title for Brooks?
Koepka is not the favorite for the PGA Championship in Valhalla, but no one capable of winning the tournament is more decorated in the game’s biggest events. Koepka has more PGA championships (tree) than almost anyone in the area has majors. Heck, he has more major wins (five) than almost everyone else in the field has on the PGA Tour.
Entering Valhalla after the victory in Singapore is reminiscent of 2023, when he went to the Masters after a victory at LIV Golf Orlando and nearly took off his green jacket before falling to Jon Rahm in a 30-hole duel on Sunday at Augusta National.
Koepka’s major league record is unparalleled. The only golfers of his generation who can claim anything equivalent to what he accomplished are Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. However, Koepka is a year younger than McIlroy and apparently much closer than Spieth to winning his next major.
What’s fascinating about Koepka is that he seemingly has the ability to turn it off and on at will. That’s always been the cliché about him, but it’s hard not to give it credit when he literally says it out loud, as he did on the Sunday after the event in Singapore.
“I think I’m a good striker,” Koepka said when asked what gives him the winning edge in major championships. “I’m pretty good inside 8 feet, I feel like. Usually when there’s a clutch shot, I feel like I made it, but I think the big thing that separates me is my ability to lock in and go somewhere I don’t think a lot of guys can go.”
It’s that last part that intrigues those of us who follow the main proceedings closely. My ability to lock myself away and go somewhere I don’t think a lot of guys can go.
This is not a new idea for Koepka. He has uttered some variation of this for years. It’s a different way of expressing your old saying about how there are only 10, 15 or 20 guys who can win when the majors come around. But it taps into his secret superpower, which is also Scheffler’s secret superpower: focus and commitment.
Scheffler is better than anyone else in the world at blocking out noise without worrying about what’s going on around him. This is reminiscent of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, “If.” Here’s the opening line:
If you can keep a cool head when everything is around you
They’re losing theirs and blaming you,
No one is now better at keeping a cool head than Scheffler. However, if there is It is someone almost as good at this is Koepka. This is certainly what he means by going somewhere I think a lot of guys can’t go. It’s the ability to let chaos reign and walk away with another trophy at the end of an event due to the commitment to each shot, the execution of a disciplined plan and the blinders you need to win a major. It’s an extraordinarily difficult task that drains a player mentally and emotionally, which may be why Koepka struggles to move on from non-major titles.
Koepka has often spoken about the mind games present in the latter groups of a major tournament. After being knocked down by Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA Championship, he spoke cryptically about things that happened that Sunday that he wouldn’t let happen again. Almost the same situation occurred in the 2023 Masters against Rahm. While Koepka didn’t reveal what bothered him about that loss, it could be as simple as the fact that he let certain things control what he was doing instead of staying mentally tough enough to have it happen the other way around.
Regardless, if Koepka can keep his head at this year’s PGA, and his tee-to-green game is what it has been since the Masters, he will probably be thinking about the possibility of joining some exclusive company over the weekend.
- Only three men have won 4+ PGAs: Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Walter Hagen
- Only three golfers have won more than 6 tournaments since 1980: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Nick Faldo
- Only 11 golfers have won more than 6 tournaments after World War II
That’s an insane company Koepka could join in a few weeks as he turns 34, with several years to go to add to that total.
This gets lost a little because he is a historically odd figure in the sport and plays for LIV Golf, but there is tremendous history at play every time Koepka tees off in a major tournament. There’s always the opportunity for him to go somewhere a lot of guys can’t.
Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter and Greg DuCharme recap Taylor Pendrith’s first PGA Tour win. Plus, Brooks Koepka’s victory before the PGA Championship. Follow and listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts It is Spotify.