Day: June 18, 2018

Brooks Koepka wins second straight U.S. OpenBrooks Koepka wins second straight U.S. Open

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – Ricky Elliott didn’t know what to expect when he made the short journey from Orlando to Jupiter, Florida, to check up on his boss, Brooks Koepka. It was the week after the Masters, and Koepka had been out for three months with a partially torn tendon in his left wrist, watching TV and hating it. He’d said on the phone he was going to try and start hitting some little shots, but he was probably going to be pretty rusty. Elliott, a former Irish boys’ champion who started to caddie for Koepka when the latter was just starting out in Europe, tried to temper his expectations. He wasn’t prepared for what he found. “I went down and he was hitting full shots, and he was hitting them right out of the button,â€� Elliott said. “I’m going, ‘Are you sure you haven’t been practicing?’ He didn’t hit a shot for three and a half months, and it looked like he hadn’t missed a beat. I have no idea how he does it; he’s obviously a tremendously talented guy.â€� Yeah, you could say that. At the end of a week in which Koepka said that no one was more confident than him, and that someone was going to have to come and take the trophy away from him, Koepka, 28, shot a final-round 68 to finish 1 over par and become the first player to win back-to-back U.S. Opens since Curtis Strange in 1988-’89. Tommy Fleetwood (63) finished second, a shot back. Koepka is projected to move up 33 spots, to 13th, in the FedExCup, and to ascend to 4th in the Official World Golf Ranking. How did this one compare to last year? A lot of people asked that Sunday. Koepka had a higher score (by 15 shots), and a bigger friends-and-family section (a dozen or more people) that this time included his father, Bob, on Father’s Day. Although Shinnecock Hills is different from Erin Hills around the greens, Koepka and Elliott agreed the course felt similar enough.  Another popular talking point: the bromance between Koepka and his final-round playing partner, Dustin Johnson (70, 3 over). They didn’t chat during the round but worked out together Sunday morning (they share the same trainer, Joey Diovisalvi) and Koepka dished that while he has Johnson beat on upper body, Johnson is “a freakâ€� in the lower-body department. But for Koepka the most important preparation for winning this U.S. Open was not winning the last one, nor was it hanging out with world No. 1 Johnson, although he admitted D.J. would be one of the first people he calls upon returning home to South Florida. The most important preparation was that long stretch where he did nothing at all. He realized to his surprise that he not only missed the game, he needed it. “It was very frustrating,â€� Koepka said, “sitting on the couch, not doing anything. You know, I couldn’t pick anything up with my left hand. I was in a soft cast all the way up to my elbow. It wasn’t fun.â€� More than just his cast got soft, his famous biceps deflating with disuse. But a funny thing happened simultaneously: Koepka’s desire went the other way, inflating until it was ready to burst. “For someone like Brooks, who has never been a golf nerd, I think he fell in love with golf,â€� said Claude Harmon III, his swing coach at the Floridian. Koepka follows sports (most pros do), but usually doesn’t watch golf on TV (most don’t). This year, though, was an exception. He watched his Presidents Cup teammate Patrick Reed win the Masters and slip on the green jacket from his living room sofa. Harmon was stunned. “I really believe he fell in love with the game of golf and playing and hitting shots,â€� Harmon said. “He only started hitting balls, full swings with wedges and 9-irons, the Monday after Augusta. To come from there to where he is now is huge. The athlete in him helped him.â€�     Asked about his rapid return to a world-class golfer, Koepka shrugged. “Yeah, I think the first day I hit balls, everything came out exactly the way it should have,â€� he said. “It felt like I didn’t miss three months.â€� Was he surprised? “No,â€� he said. “I mean, last year at the British, I think I played once from the U.S. Open to the Open and then came out, and I think I had a piece of the lead. I don’t need to practice every single day. It’s the same game I’ve been playing for 24 years now. I know what I’m doing. I know how to swing a golf club. It’s just a game that I’ve been playing my entire life.â€� The athlete in Koepka saw him through at Shinnecock. While other players grumbled about the greens, the weather and the pin placements, Koepka steadfastly refused to go negative. “Everybody has to play the same course,â€� he said. The athlete in Koepka saw him stand up to the course’s sometimes foul moods. He made par putts of just over 6 feet and 8 ½ feet at the 12th and 14th holes, respectively, to maintain momentum Sunday, and rolled in a crucial bogey putt from just inside 13 feet at the 11th.    “To get that up and down was absolutely massive,â€� caddie Elliott said. “It’s hard to believe that a bogey keeps your momentum goin’ but it kinda did.â€� Momentum is a funny thing; if you’re doing it right, it never leaves you for long. Koepka will be going for his third straight U.S. Open title at Pebble Beach next year. He says he doesn’t putt well on poa annua, and therefore doesn’t play too much on the PGA TOUR’s West Coast Swing. Take that for what it’s worth; if we’ve learned anything over the last four days on these windswept links, it’s that it would be foolish to write him off. Koepka’s first U.S. Open title defense looked doomed when he opened with a 75 at Shinnecock on Thursday, but he stormed back with a 66 on Friday. He fought the semi-unplayable course to a draw (72) Saturday, and bucked up on holes 11 through 14 when he easily could’ve folded Sunday. By the time he was interviewed by Fox’s Strange (an apt pairing of interviewer and interviewee) on the 18th green, where he had made a meaningless bogey to win, Koepka had done what all U.S. Open champions must: He had exerted his considerable will and flexed his underrated putting prowess in the face of everything the course, the USGA and Mother Nature could throw at him. The pain in his wrist, which had felt like someone was jabbing him with a knife as he finished last at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January, was gone. The binge-watching of all those TV shows, including the Masters, was but a memory. Brooks Koepka, two-time U.S. Open champion, was loving life.

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Brooks Koepka makes history with back-to-back wins at U.S. OpenBrooks Koepka makes history with back-to-back wins at U.S. Open

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – The phrase “U.S. Open player� used to be more descriptive than a Myers-Briggs result. Only a specific personality type had consistent success in this nation’s championship. The U.S. Open’s constrictive setups required players to walk the straight and narrow. The “U.S. Open player� was more concerned with staying out of trouble than a sheriff’s son. He had sharp creases in his khaki pants and organized his sock drawer for fun. He calculated risk like an actuary. No more. Brooks Koepka broke the mold with his historic performance at Shinnecock Hills. The man whose biceps bulge out of his tailored sleeves is now the first player in nearly three decades to win this championship in consecutive years. A Sunday 68 gave him a 72-hole total of 281, two shots better than Tommy Fleetwood. “The traditional U.S. Open player is changing. The player in general is changing,� said Curtis Strange, who had been the last back-to-back U.S. Open champ (1988-89). “It’s a different game than when Hale (Irwin) and I were playing. … You still have to put it in the fairway more often than not, but it’s all about power.� Koepka showed that at Erin Hills, where he wielded driver with impunity in a dominant display. He tied the U.S. Open’s scoring record (16 under par) while missing just 10 greens. He led in greens hit while ranking in the top 10 in both driving distance and accuracy that week. That modern course carved from the Wisconsin dairy land sent traditionalists into a tizzy with its wide fairways and soft greens, though. Erin Hills was making its U.S. Open debut. Shinnecock Hills is an 18-hole history lesson. It’s the only course to host this event in three different centuries, dating to the second U.S. Open in 1896. Shinnecock Hills is a traditional test but Koepka compiled similar statistics in his victory. He finished second in driving distance (318.3 yards), fourth in greens hit (49 of 72) and second in Strokes Gained: Putting (+2.13 per round). “I’m proud of him because there was so much talk about Erin Hills not being a (true) U.S. Open and that he was a big hitter and the whole thing,� Strange said, the last man to win back-to-back U.S. Opens (1988-89). “He won on a classic, so he’s an Open player.� That phrase has a new meaning in 2018. Now well-rounded bombers take an aggressive approach to the U.S. Open’s penal layouts. Long hitters used to be one-dimensional players who sacrificed short-game touch in their quest for strength. Now technology helps players like Koepka and Dustin Johnson hit the ball longer and straighter, and these athletic players combine high swing speed with the hand-eye coordination that helps them have a deft touch around the green. That’s why two of the TOUR’s longest hitters – Koepka and Johnson – have been this tournament’s top players over the past five years. Koepka hasn’t finished outside the top 20 in the past five Opens, including his back-to-back wins and a fourth-place finish at Pinehurst in 2014. Johnson has four top-4 finishes since 2014, including his win two years ago at Oakmont. The two friends from South Florida have won the last three U.S. Opens. “The best quote I ever heard is somebody asked Hogan years and years ago if the players today were better. He said, ‘I hope so because if they weren’t we would not have contributed anything to the game,’� Strange said. “(Koepka) is a good striker of the ball and he’s strong and he has a good short game. “He’d beat me like a yard dog.� Strange fit the old U.S. Open mold. He ranked outside the top 150 in driving distance in 1989 but hit more than three-quarters of his fairways. Koepka can hit long irons farther than Strange’s average tee shot (254 yards) that season. One requirement has remained constant over the decades, though. The U.S. Open demands fortitude. The thick rough and firm greens can drive players mad. Koepka thrives when other players complain. “If you start complaining, you’re looking for excuses,� he said. “I’m not really one to make excuses. … The U.S. Open is always going to be a tough test of golf. I enjoy that.� Koepka’s instructor, Claude Harmon III, said that in this regard, Koepka is in the ilk of past U.S. Open champions like Strange and Raymond Floyd, who won at Shinnecock Hills in 1986. “They were these characters, tough and mean,� Harmon said. “Brooks has a very similar demeanor. Nothing bothers him.� Long par putts are some of the game’s most stressful shots and always key in a U.S. Open victory. Koepka showed his strength under such duress by finishing eighth in putting from 5-10 feet (71 percent). The obsession with length can make many overlook Koepka’s strong short game. “I felt like I made those clutch 8- to 10-footers that you need to make to keep the momentum going,� he said. With Tommy Fleetwood already in the clubhouse at 2 over after shooting 63, Koepka knew he had to play Shinnecock Hills’ difficult back nine in even par. A birdie at 10 gave him a two-shot cushion but he was happy to make bogey on the par-3 11th. He pulled his wedge shot, which hit the slope behind the green and bounded into the fescue. His best option was to bang his second shot through the green and into a bunker. He holed a 13-footer for a bogey that was more gratifying than many birdies. He had to hole a 6-foot par putt at the next hole after missing both the fairway and the green. Two holes later, he had to scramble again at the course’s hardest hole after another pushed tee shot. More than 10 people had to look for his ball even though it was just a few yards after the fairway. After hacking out of the hay, he got up-and-down from 67 yards by holing a 9-footer. It wasn’t until a birdie at the long par-5 16th, where he wedged to 4 feet, that his lead looked safe. “Physical skills alone don’t win tournaments,� Strange said. “You have to have the whole package. He was 7 over at one point on Friday. How do you turn it around? Not everyone can do it. You have to be mentally tough to believe in yourself.� Koepka showed both in his historic win.

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Dad Move set Koepka on path to golf greatnessDad Move set Koepka on path to golf greatness

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