Finally, Brooks Koepka wrote checks that his game just could not cash.
For the past three years, Koepka has toured the golf world with an air of superiority as if he had found the secret to winning and winning major championships. An elixir of greatness known only to him.
Koepka’s action was initially new and refreshing and he backed it up, winning four majors in two years, including back-to-back US Options and back-to-back PGA Championships.
His constant great success turned his confidence into arrogance. He pretended not to care about contending at regular tournaments as if it was up to him to worry about competing against his contemporaries more than four times a year. He claimed that contending for and winning majors was easier because he entered the week believing that he only had to beat a handful of players, thinking that most were not at his level or did not have the mental ability to struggling and flourishing at the greatest stages as he had.
Koepka did the talking – and for a while walked the walk – trying to convince people that he was an invincible force at major championships that it would be best to make a Herculean effort. That he, like Tiger Woods in his prime, was not left behind by the great moments that most players buckle. The four-time major has spent the last two major seasons playing phenomenal golf and drinking his own Kool-Aid, buying into the myth he had created that he had something every other player just did not.
Koepka’s action reached an unforgettable level of arrogance on Saturday when he ran green after the third round of the 2020 PGA Championship and immediately began to ignore the 54-hole leader Dustin Johnson, a 21-time winner of the PGA Tour and US Open champion.
Like a high school kid playing jock to make himself better, Koepka feels like it was a foregone conclusion that he would take over Johnson on Sunday at TPC Harding Park to win his third consecutive Wanamaker Trophy to become the first player become three turf at the PGA Championship since Walter Hagen won four in a row from 1924-27.
It turns out that hubris does not make you a great champion. The beauty of golf is that there is no hiding when your game leaves you, and the game provided Koepka with a massive dose of reality on Sunday on Lake Merced.
Koepka opened the day two shots back from Johnson, but almost fell out of controversy, going out in par-4-over, with three straight bogeys on holes seven, eight and nine carded, to fall to 3-under before the tournament .
His shot at immortality was gone. His aura of inaccessibility broke.
“Every time I hit it in the rough today, I probably got the worst lie I had all week,” Koepka said after shooting a 4-over-par 74 to make 10 shots back from winner Collin Morikawa. “You know, if you’re going to put it here in the rough, it’s pretty hard. The green speeds this weekend I never really got under. I felt like putting green was a little faster. And just never quite putts to it. hole to make something. That, you do not do it, it will be difficult. “
Even after the flop of Sunday’s final, Koepka was quick to turn his attention back to his recent important track record.
“I mean, it’s my first bad round in a while in a major,” Koepka said, trying to remove his bad play, as he would on a Thursday in the Zurich Classic. “You know, hey, that was not meant to be. Three in a row, you don’t really have to do two in a row to history, but that’s fine.”
After having enough to say for the final round, Koepka did not add much on Sunday night. He was complimented by Morikawa, who won the title in just his second career start, leaving stage left.
All the verbal jabs and excessive arrogance could not ignite Koepka’s match on Sunday. Karma and the golf gods grabbed holes in his act as the uncanny alpha man of golf.
There is no secret sauce to Koepka’s great success. Highest confidence in yourself does not keep you cold on big Sundays. There are no accidents in golf. You have it or you do not have it.
Koepka’s big run was brilliant, that there is no doubt. His four major victories have already ticketed him for the Golf Hall of Fame, and he is more than capable of adding more majors to his resume.
But the elaborate persona he has constructed over the past two years evaporated Sunday when he came apart like a wet paper sack when TPC Harding Park gave him his lunch. His 4-over par 74 was the second-worst score in the field Sunday, ahead of just Jim Herman’s 75.
Koepka went into the final round of the final round on Sunday and was deflated after cuddling under the weight of great history.
A mortal just like the rest of us, Koepka must now prove that the greatness he has shown over the past two years is real and lasting.
Only his game can do the talking this time.
Related
