The 117th edition of the United States Open Golf Championship is now in the record books. Brooks Koepka, a three-time All-American at Florida State who honed his golfing skills on the European Challenge Tour, is the latest 20-something to win a major championship and the seventh consecutive newbie to win his first grand slam title. The state of Wisconsin also was a novice to the U.S. Open experience and the jury is still out as to whether the National Open will return to Erin Hills sometime in the next 15 years. The USGA liked the fact that traffic was not an issue, the event was a sellout and all the corporate tents were sold. However, the stuffed shirts who run the Open have probably had sleepless nights because of all the under-par scores that dotted the leader board. I blame that fact upon wide-open fairways and Midwest rains.
Brooks Koepka was the “who’s he?” guy on last autumn’s American Ryder Cup team during the biennial matches at Hazeltine. Brooks made it onto the team through the points system and ended up posting a 3-1 record during Team America’s victorious effort. While most fans of the game are very familiar with Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and the rest, Koepka was the most under-the-radar member of the team.
Growing up in Palm Beach, Brooks grew up in an athletic family. The most famous family member from the world of sports is uncle Dick Groat, an All-Star shortstop with Pittsburgh who won the National League MVP in 1960, the year the Pirates beat the Yankees in the World Series. Koepka played collegiately for Florida State and while he was a strong college player, he was one of many during the collegiate era of Spieth, Daniel Berger, Justin Thomas and the rest. In the summer of 2009, he won the prestigious Rice Planters Amateur and in 2012 he qualified as an amateur for the United States Open. Following that tourney, Brooks turned professional as a 22-year-old and decided to try his hand on the European Challenge Tour, their version of the Web.com Tour. It was a wise choice to get much-needed experience overseas.
Koepka had immediate success in Europe, winning the Challenge de Calalunya in Spain in late September of 2012. He returned to the Challenge Tour for the 2013 season and was its dominant performer, winning tourneys in Italy, Spain and Scotland. His solid 2013 campaign earned him a promotion to the European Tour for 2014. While he was fully exempt in Europe, he also returned on occasion to America to compete. Brooks won the Turkish Airlines Open that year, came in third place at Dubai, finished third in the European Masters, and received the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. Meanwhile he played solidly in America, finishing third at Silverado and fourth in the United States Open. His high finishes in America earned him a PGA Tour card for 2014-15 and he suddenly found himself exempt on both sides of the Atlantic. He would focus primarily on the American PGA Tour although he continued with his globetrotting ways.
In 2015 he powered his way to victory in the Phoenix Open, finished sixth at the World Golf Championship at Firestone, had a top-five finish in the PGA Championship, and finished tied for 10th at the British Open. Koepka concluded his 2016 campaign with his winning performance in the Ryder Cup Matches that were won by Team USA. One month later he captured the most prestigious tournament in Asia, the Phoenix Dunlap in Japan.
Koepka has been working on his game since turning professional with Claude Harmon, the son of noted golf instructor Butch Harmon. Pete Cowan works with Brooks on aspects of his short game. In the end though, it was his mental strength that helped him prevail at Erin Hills where the U.S. Open was totally up for grabs entering the final nine on Sunday. He opened the back nine with a three-putt bogey on the 10th and had to make a most impressive up-and-down on the 13th hole for a quality par. With Brian Harman lurking one stroke back and with Hideki Matsuyama making a big-time charge up the leader board, Koepka put the pedal to the metal, making a two-putt birdie on the par-5 14th hole. He followed it up with consecutive birdies on the 15th and 16th holes. Harman went a little south, Matsuyama was derailed by a costly bogey on the 15th to set up a two-stroke swing, and suddenly Brooks was able to enjoy the adulation as he walked up the 18th fairway to a certain victory in the National Open.
Moments before, Koepka stood on the 18th tee and unleashed a drive up the middle of the fairway that hit the down slope and rolled out to 379 yards from the tee. That’s pretty impressive stuff for a guy who led the tournament in greens in regulation as well. More importantly, Koepka is not the most accurate driver on tour, ranking around 175th in accuracy while hitting the fairway just 56 percent of the time. Yet at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills, Koepka averaged just under 90-percent accuracy when it came to hitting the fairways. On Sunday he hit 13 out of 14 fairways while hitting 17 out of 18 greens. As earlier mentioned, his only bogey of the day was the three-putt on the 10th. There is such a thing in golf as horses for courses and while power players such as Jason Day, Rory McIlory and Dustin Johnson missed their fair share of fairways as well as the 36-hole cut, Brooks Koepka obviously figured out that Erin Hills suited his game perfectly.
It doesn’t surprise me that Brooks Koepka is now a major champion. What does surprise me is that members of his peer group have failed to add to their major championship total during the last two years. It wasn’t that long ago that we just knew Rory McIlory would soon win his fifth major and that Jordan Spieth would soon capture his third major. Yet there have been seven consecutive first-time major winners with some surprises such as Jimmy Walker, Danny Willett, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson alongside the game’s up-and-coming heroes, namely Jason Day and Dustin Johnson. In the era between the end of Tom Watson’s career and the start of the Tiger Woods reign, a number of outstanding golfers won their one and only major, most notably Paul Azinger, Davis Love III, Tom Lehman and Freddie Couples. Maybe we will experience more of the same during the next few seasons of grand slam golf.
The 2017 U.S. Open is now in the record books. Its champion is another one of those ball-busting 20-somethings who launch 350-yard tee shots, hit wedge shots from 150 yards out to 12 feet and then bury the putt. It was a career-defining moment for Brooks Koepka. Golf’s major season moves on to Royal Birkdale in England next month. We’ll learn a lot more by then.
