Brooks Koepka won at TPC Scottsdale on Sunday using a new set of Srixon irons and a new TaylorMade driver.
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• FIELD: See who’s playing this week. • COURSE: Colonial Country Club, 7,209 yards, par 70. Set to host its 72nd edition, only Augusta National has a longer unbroken tenure on the PGA TOUR schedule. The 1936 Perry Maxwell/John Bredemus design is a classic shotmaker’s layout, known for its tight fairways and many doglegs. The U.S. Open came to Colonial in 1941 – the first time the Open went south of the Mason-Dixon Line – and the PGA TOUR made its first visit five years later. Colonial also held the second edition of THE PLAYERS Championship in 1975, the 1991 U.S. Women’s Open and Annika Sorenstam’s historic 2003 venture as the first woman to tee up in a PGA TOUR event since World War II. • FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points. • CHARITY: A record $11 million was raised last year for some three dozen Tarrant County charities, bringing total donations over the past two decades to more than $90 million. Among last year’s beneficiaries were SafeHaven of Tarrant County, the All Saints Health Foundation and The First Tee of Fort Worth. • FIELD WATCH: Jordan Spieth makes a title defense in his home state for the first time, joined by Masters champion Sergio Garcia in a lineup featuring eight of the top 30 in the world rankings. … Si Woo Kim, newly crowned winner of THE PLAYERS, is set to tee it up for the first time since his triumph at TPC Sawgrass. … Phil Mickelson, the 1996 champion, returns to Colonial for the first time since the 2010 edition. … Beau Hossler, a former All-American at Texas now in his first full year as a professional, will play on one of two Champions Choice invitations given out each year to young pros. … The other invite went to Jamie Sadlowski, a two-time World Long Drive champion now splitting time between the Web.com Tour and Mackenzie Tour. • 72-HOLE RECORD: 259, Zach Johnson (2010). • 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Keith Clearwater (2nd round, 1993), Lee Janzen (4th round, 1993), Greg Kraft (3rd round, 1999), Kenny Perry (3rd round, 2003), Justin Leonard (4th round, 2003), Chad Campbell (3rd round, 2004). • LAST YEAR: Spieth finally came up with that elusive first win in his home state, heating up on Sunday’s back nine and finishing with a birdie/birdie/birdie charge for a second straight 65 and a three-stroke victory over Harris English. Spieth took a one-shot lead into the final day, but nine pars on the front dropped the Dallas native two shots back before he found his rhythm. Three straight birdies after the turn brought him level with English, and the tie stood until Spieth made a curling 20-foot birdie at No.16. A chip-in followed at No.17, and he coaxed home a 34-foot birdie at the 18th to seal the victory. It was Spieth’s first win in 19 Texas starts, including a trio of runner-up finishes in 2015. • STORYLINES: Spieth, fresh off back-to-back missed cuts at THE PLAYERS and AT&T Byron Nelson, heads to the other side of the Metroplex seeking to turn it around in short order. It’s just the second time he’s exited early in consecutive starts, after The Barclays and Deutsche Bank Championship in 2015. … After a rare week off, Kim also gets to tee it up as something of a local hero. The South Korean, who already has 19 starts this season, now calls Dallas his adopted hometown. … Ryan Palmer, a Colonial member, again seeks home-course triumph after last year’s share of third. That was his fourth top-15 finish in the past five years, including ties for fifth in 2012 and ‘14. … Spieth also has a chance to join Ben Hogan as the only man to record back-to-back wins at Colonial. Hogan did it twice – 1946-47 and 1952-53. • SHORT CHIPS: Former AT&T Byron Nelson champions Jason Dufner and Steven Bowditch can become the 16th man to hit the “DFW Doubleâ€� by winning both Dallas-Fort Worth stops in their career. Adam Scott was the last, not only taking the double in 2014 but becoming the first to complete the “Texas Grand Slamâ€� when combined with wins in Houston (2007) and San Antonio (’10). … Before Spieth’s victory, the previous seven editions had seen the 54-hole leader unable to finish the task. … Barring a late WD, Matt Kuchar and Jhonattan Vegas are the only players that will have teed it up in all five Texas stops this year. • TELEVISION: Thursday-Friday, 4-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS). • PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. (featured groups), 4-7 p.m. (featured holes). • RADIO: Thursday-Friday, 1-7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com).
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.
NAPA, Calif. — Max Homa chipped in from nearly 33 feet for birdie on the closing hole, then watched as Danny Willett shockingly three-putted from inside 4 feet on Sunday to give Homa his second straight title at the Fortinet Championship. Homa high-fived his caddie when his ball hit the flagstick and dropped. His previous shot from a nearby bunker came up short of the green at the par-5 18th hole. Willett, meanwhile, had a one-shot lead at the rain-soaked PGA TOUR season opener and stuffed his third shot to 3 feet, 7 inches. He rammed his first putt 4 feet, 8 inches by, then missed the comebacker to hand Homa his fifth victory on TOUR. “Them things happen. Luckily we’ve been in a good position all week and then unfortunate things happen when you feel like you need them most,” said Willett, who’s winless in the United States since he took advantage of Jordan Spieth’s collapse to win the 2016 Masters. Homa closed with a 4-under 66 for a total of 16-under 272 and now heads to Charlotte, North Carolina, as a captain’s pick for the Presidents Cup with three wins in the past 12 months. Willett shot 69. Taylor Montgomery was alone in third at 13 under after a closing 64. The leaders had their tee times pushed up by nearly four hours in an effort to get the round in before the North course at Silverado Resort & Spa became completely unplayable. Greens that had been hard and fast earlier in the week from the sun and wind were suddenly quite the opposite, slow and soft from all the water. Justin Lower held a one-stroke lead going into the final day while chasing his first title after years of struggles just to secure his TOUR card. The 33-year-old American wound up tied for fourth with Byeong Hun An at 12 under after shooting a 1-over 73. Willett birdied three holes on the front nine to take a three-stroke lead, only to miss a short par putt on the par-5 ninth as Lower birdied to pull back within a stroke. Homa and Willett began the day one shot back of Lower. All three players birdied the par-4 10th. On the par-4 14th, Willett made a miraculous birdie. His tee shot landed behind a tree, and then he whipped the ball around it to the back side of the fringe before sinking a 5-foot putt. On the front nine, Willett birdied Nos. 1, 4 and 8 — making a 7-footer for birdie on the par-4 eighth while Lower made bogey. The 34-year-old Willett, from Sheffield, England, stayed loose, laughed with his caddie and smiled between holes in far from ideal conditions in California’s famous wine country: wind and heavy rain the first three holes, a brief respite, then more rain. He regularly toweled off his clubs, wiped off his shoes before putting and took on and off his black sleeveless vest. The weather made for an intimate gallery of umbrella-holding diehards willing to brave the elements. “It’s what I came to California for,” Willett cracked with a grin in the early going of his final round.
