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Coming off his fifth consecutive missed cut, Jhonattan Vegas went back to his trusty Mizuno MP-4 muscleback irons at the RBC Canadian Open. Vegas had been using a set of MP-18 prototype blades since the Shell Houston Open but felt a change could do him some good. The three-time PGA TOUR winner had the irons shipped from his home to Glen Abbey Golf Club and tested them early in the week before making the switch. Vegas hit 75 percent of his greens in regulation and ranked fifth in strokes gained: approach the green (plus 7.139) on his way to back-to-back wins in Canada. Vegas used the MP-4 8-iron to hit the defining shot of the tournament from a fairway bunker on the first playoff hole that clipped the lip and rolled just off the back of the green. Vegas would get up-and-down for birdie to defeat Charley Hoffman. Here’s a look at Vegas’ entire equipment setup. Driver: TaylorMade M2 2017 (nVentix Nunchuk X shaft), 10.5 degrees 3-wood: Nike Vapor Speed (nVentix Nunchuk X shaft), 15 degrees 5-wood: Nike Vapor Speed (nVentix Nunchuk X shaft), 19 degrees Irons: Mizuno MP-4 (3-PW; True Temper Project X 7.0 shafts) Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design 2016 Prototype (54-10V degrees; True Temper Project X 7.0 shaft), Titleist Vokey Design 2016 Prototype (60-10V degrees; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft) Putter: Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS Ball: Titleist Pro V1

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – It was closer than many expected, this 101st PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, which at times resembled a very slow-moving trophy ceremony. Still, after weathering four straight back-nine bogeys and a charge by Dustin Johnson (69, 6 under total) that briefly cut the lead to one, Brooks Koepka stabilized and shot a final-round 74 to win by two. He’d done enough over the first three days, which he spent “absolutely destroying this placeâ€� (Xander Schauffele) and playing “ridiculous golfâ€� (Rob Labritz). And now he’s won four majors in 23 months. “Brooks is young; he might get to double figures,â€� three-time major winner Padraig Harrington said after missing the cut earlier this week. “It’s a numbers game. He’s young enough that he could do it. Why wouldn’t you talk about getting to 18? He’s cracking them out at a fair pace.â€� Koepka, 29, put the lie to his own prediction that the winning score would be around even or a bit better. But he may prove himself right in suggesting before the tournament that he could perhaps get to double digits in major wins. If he keeps this up, he could get there quickly. The question is whether he will. “Players drift in and out,â€� said Harrington, a six-time PGA TOUR winner who won his three majors, the 2007 Open Championship and ’08 Open Championship and PGA Championship, in just 13 months. “Pretty much if you watch everybody’s career, they get about 18 months where they truly peak. Whether they’re 100th in the world and they become 50th, or 50th and it becomes 20th, or 20th and it becomes 10, or 10 becomes 1, I don’t know.â€� Until his four back-nine bogeys Sunday, you could count Koepka’s missteps on one hand. He bogeyed the relatively easy first hole to start the final round while playing partner Harold Varner III birdied it to cut the margin to five, but even then there wasn’t much cause for concern. Related: Winner’s Bag | Bjerregaard aces No. 17 at Bethpage | Get to know Jazz Janewattananond Johnson shot a 3-under front nine to cut the margin to four, but Koepka hit his approach to 2 ½ feet and birdied the 10th, and it was back to five again. Then came a wild sequence, in swirling winds, as Johnson held steady and Koepka bogeyed holes 11-14. The lead was one. “DJ, DJ, DJ!â€� the rowdy Bethpage crowd chanted, awakened by the promise of a tight finish. Alas, Johnson missed from just under 9 feet and bogeyed 16, then bogeyed 17, too, to give Koepka the cushion he needed to play the last four holes in 1 over and become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2007 to successfully defend his PGA Championship title. Woods, whom Koepka beat head-to-head by 17 shots over the first two days, was also the last player to win four majors in a span of eight major starts – as Koepka has now done – in 2005 and ’06. But Woods, an 81-time PGA TOUR winner, including 15 majors, has been such an outlier, as Adam Scott reminded at Bethpage, “I think comparing anything to Tiger is a little unfair.â€� Nor is it helpful to compare Koepka to Jack Nicklaus, who won 18 majors of a span of 24 years, from the 1962 U.S. Open through the instant-classic ’86 Masters Tournament. Another outlier. Lee Trevino won four majors from the 1968 U.S. Open through the ’72 Open Championship, roughly four years. He won the ’74 and ’84 PGAs, too, for six majors over 16 years. More common, especially amongst today’s crop of talented, young players, is the trajectory of Johnny Miller, who won 16 times, including three majors, from the 1973 U.S. Open to the ’76 Open Championship. That was mostly it for him; Miller ended his career with two majors. Rory McIlroy (69, 1 over total) won 11 times worldwide, including four majors, from 2011 through 2014. Since then, however, he’s gone largely dormant at the biggest tournaments, the glaring exception being his victory at the recent PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass. “It’s awesome,â€� McIlroy said of Koepka’s current run. “It’s great to watch.â€� Most pros would sooner watch paint dry than another pro play golf on TV, but McIlroy admitted he was done so early he watched a lot of Koepka on TV this weekend. Because when a guy seems to be playing a different golf course than everyone else, it begs the question of how. Graeme McDowell (70, 5 over) did the same thing. “I just wanted to see just how these guys were dismantling this golf course,â€� McDowell said. “When he played 15 the way he played it (Saturday), that kind of summed the course up to me because when I missed 15 fairway, I’m physically incapable of getting to that green in two, and obviously it was a brute-force wedge or 9-iron he hit to 15 feet.â€� Bethpage, he added, favored those who could muscle the ball out of the rough. “That’s why I lift all those weights,â€� Koepka said with a shrug. With winning off the table, McIlroy talked about playing for pride, Phil Mickelson (76, 12 over) about working on his game. Matt Wallace (72, 2 under, T3) spoke of being on a quest for world ranking points. FedExCup leader Matt Kuchar (69, 1 over total) remained in pole position. Koepka’s seven-shot lead through 54 holes was the largest in PGA history. So was his seven-shot lead through 36 holes. He broke the course record with a 63 on Thursday.  Said Tony Finau, Koepka’s partner at the 2018 Ryder Cup in France, “This is not a golf course where in the practice rounds I would have told you anybody’s breaking any kind of record.â€� McDowell called the winner perhaps “the next real dominant player.â€� We have been here before, most recently with Jordan Spieth (71, 2 under, T3) when he won five times, including two majors and the FedExCup, in 2015. He got his third major at The Open Championship in the summer of ’17. But as with Miller, McIlroy and most others not named Nicklaus, Woods or Trevino, the pace proved unsustainable. That doesn’t mean Spieth won’t be back, and he showed some positive signs in posting a season-best T3 at Bethpage Black. McIlroy could have a second act. Same for Jason Day, who won seven times, including the 2015 PGA and 2016 PLAYERS Championship, in 17 starts. “I don’t think he faces too much challenge, to be honest, with the way he’s playing,â€� Day (72, 4 over total) said of Koepka, “but everything ultimately comes to an end.â€� Only three players have reached double digits in majors: Nicklaus (18), Woods (15) and Walter Hagen (11). Koepka, with four, is mowing them down quickly, on very hard courses. He knows he doesn’t have to be perfect, and when he’s not, he can bounce back. Mostly, he knows that if he plays his game, nothing else matters. He said he couldn’t remember any shots hit by Woods or Francesco Molinari after the first two rounds. He’s in his comfort zone. “Tiger used to say, ‘My B game is good enough to win,â€� Harrington said. “If you think your B game is good enough to win, your A game will turn up. If you think you need your A game, your B game will turn up. That’s just the way golf is.â€� Next up: the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Koepka will be the two-time defending champion there, just as he will be the two-time defending champion at the PGA at Harding Park next year. Whether it’s New York or California, one suspects that Brooks Koepka, king of the majors, won’t be all that worried about which game will turn up, or much of anything else. 

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Facing one of the most delicate shots in the game – a pitch off the putting surface over the ridge that bisects the 17th green – Gary Woodland taps into the resolve and positivity of a friend (Amy “I got thisâ€� Bockerstette) and stays cool under pressure from beginning to end to win the U.S. Open by three over two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka.  Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Woodland converted a 54-hole lead/co-lead into a victory for the first time in eight tries on the PGA TOUR, and signaled he has reached a whole new level of excellence as he jumped to fifth in the FedExCup. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Woodland is one-dimensional no more. With his broad back and an athlete’s swagger, Woodland made no secret of his competitive advantage over the course of his first 244 starts on TOUR. He was strong. He was long. Now he’s a lot more than that. “It was just learning how to play golf,â€� the popular winner said after not only hanging onto his one-shot lead but extending it to three by the time the day was done. There were plenty of reasons to doubt Woodland, starting with his seven failures to close out 54-hole leads/co-leads, extending to his streaky putting, and grinding to a halt at his pedestrian record at Pebble. (He shot 76-76 to miss the cut at the 2010 U.S. Open there, and had missed three cuts in four starts at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the other one a T5 in 2017.) But this really was not the same guy. Woodland, 35, was unrelenting in his quest to improve. He already had one of the best coaches in the game in his corner in Butch Harmon, but found another in Pete Cowan, and yet another in putting specialist Phil Kenyon. It was his work on the greens that stood out most as he captured his first major in his 31st career attempt. He made highlights with a 42-foot par save at the 14th hole Saturday, but was just as solid Sunday, even when his work on the greens meant swinging a sand wedge on 17. In the end, Woodland made just four bogeys all week, tying a U.S. Open record, and was a career-best 2nd in Strokes Gained: Putting (+8.3).  For more on how Woodland became a complete player, click here. 2. It all started when he changed everything. “You look at guys that are successful,â€� Woodland told the PGATOUR.COM prior to defending his title at the Waste Management Phoenix Open earlier this season, “and you ask yourself: What are they doing that I’m not?â€� And by “guysâ€� he meant more than golfers. Frustrated by injuries and looking to change things up, he called friend Ray Allen, then with the Miami Heat. “Ray told me to come to Miami to come check out this guy named David Alexander,â€� Woodland said. Alexander founded DBC Fitness, which stands for Dumbbells, Barbells and Cables, and boasts a deep roster of star athletes. DBC reshaped Woodland’s workouts, but also the way he ate, hydrated and even traveled. He even moved to South Florida (Delray Beach), which had the added benefit of facilitating further skull sessions with Alexander. “It’s just changed everything,â€� Woodland said. For more on Woodland’s decision to change everything, click here. 3. The Amy factor was huge. The final piece of the puzzle was attitude, and there was some kismet involved in how that one came together. Woodland played a hole with Special Olympics athlete Amy Bockerstette at the Waste Management at TPC Scottsdale, and after coaching herself up with self-talk (“I got thisâ€�) Bockerstette made a par that went viral on social media. Woodland made a friend who turned into more than that: an inspiration. Whenever things got tight at Pebble, and there were no shortage of such times, starting when Koepka birdied four of the first five holes ahead of him, he repeated those words from Amy in Phoenix: I got this. “She’s meant everything for me from a mental standpoint,â€� he said. For more on how Amy fueled Woodland’s major breakthrough, click here. 4. Mighty Koepka just keeps on rolling. Before he won his fourth major at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, Koepka said he didn’t see why he shouldn’t aim for at least 10 major victories. At the time his prediction likely struck a few listeners as perhaps a bit over-ambitious. But now—did he aim too low? Koepka electrified fans with his hot start Sunday (he cooled and signed for a 68) and became the first player to shoot four rounds in the 60s at a U.S. Open and not win. He has now finished either first or second in the last four majors, and doesn’t seem to be going away. “It doesn’t sting,â€� said Koepka, who after birdies at four of the first five holes went 1 over the rest of the way. “I played great. Nothing I could do. Gary played great for four days. … He deserves it; he’s worked hard and I’m happy for him.â€�   5. Rose, McIlroy rue missed opportunities. Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Rose started the day just a shot off the lead but struggled from tee to green and did well to limit the damage to a final-round 74 (T3). “I didn’t have my “A” game this week,â€� said Rose, who gave a memorable congratulatory fist-bump to Woodland after the latter player had hit perhaps the shot of the tournament on 17. “And to contend in a major with no game, really, I take the positive from that…â€� Rory McIlroy, coming off a rousing victory at the RBC Canadian Open, had only an outside shot and needed to shoot a magical round. Instead, he doomed his chances with a double-bogey at the second hole, his first of several mistakes on the day, as he shot 72 to finish T9. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Woodland was just too good on the greens, ranking +8.29 in Strokes Gained: Putting. That gave him a significant advantage over runner-up Koepka (56th, +0.24). 2. Koepka distinguished himself, among other ways, by ranking first in Greens in Regulation (54/72) and T5 in Driving Distance (310.80). But Woodland was right there with him, ranking second in Greens in Regulation (52/72) and also T5 in Driving Distance. 3. The last 10 U.S. Opens have given us seven first-time major winners. Woodland, Koepka and Jordan Spieth are the only players to win a major by three or more shots in the last three seasons. 4. One reason for McIlroy’s inability to carry his form from the RBC Canadian Open (runaway victory) to the U.S. Open (72, T9): putting. He went from +2.80 in Strokes Gained: Putting on Thursday to -2.98 in that stat on Sunday, and ranked 54th for the week. 5. Victor Hovland (67, 4 under, T12) became the first player to win low-amateur honors at the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same season since 1998. The reigning U.S. Amateur champ will turn pro at the Travelers Championship this week. WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is in its first season and adds another layer of excitement to the FedExCup Regular Season. The top 10 players at the end of the FedExCup Regular Season will earn bonus payouts from the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. Matt Kuchar (73, T16) remains No. 1, while U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland jumped from 9th to 5th. Meanwhile, friend and playing partner Justin Rose (74, T3), the reigning FedExCup champion, fought his game but nevertheless moved up a spot from 10th to 9th.

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