THE TAKE By Ron Green Jr.
On New Year’s Day, Brooks Koepka intends to find himself a nice spot on the beach – that won’t be difficult to do in Maui, where Koepka is expected to be playing in the Sentry Tournament of Champions – and rather than make resolutions, he will set his goals for 2019.
Think about that for a moment.
Koepka is 28, he’s won three of the past six major championships he’s played in and he became the top-ranked player in the world after his victory in the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges two Sundays ago in South Korea.
Should be quite a list of goals.
Does he have a working list in mind yet?
“Just keep doing what I’m doing,” Koepka said.
What’s not to like about that?
If you were one of the many who considered Koepka’s 2017 U.S. Open victory at Erin Hills a potential one-off, a harmonic convergence of Mighty Casey finding a wide, brawny golf course in the American heartland and bludgeoning it with his strength, that notion looks about as sharp as your high school haircut.
It wasn’t a fluke. It was a flame being lit.
When Koepka kept the U.S. Open trophy by winning at Shinnecock Hills in June, it was easy to say it validated his win at Erin Hills.
No, it didn’t. Winning one U.S. Open is validation enough.
Ask Tom Watson. Better yet, ask Phil Mickelson.
Winning at Shinnecock Hills demonstrated the depth of Koepka’s game and his dogged belief in what he’s doing. If ballstriking carried him at Erin Hills, Koepka’s short game and putting was the difference at Shinnecock Hills. Different tune, different dance, same result.
To win the PGA Championship at Bellerive in August, all Koepka had to do was shake off the earth shifting beneath him and brush off the noise that rained down like thunder as Tiger Woods chased him. Koepka did it by holing putts while looking like the coolest guy in sweltering St. Louis.
When he finally got close enough to grab the No. 1 spot, Koepka watched Gary Woodland throw 11 birdies at him in the final round at the CJ Cup and he answered by shooting 29 coming in to win, moving his buddy Dustin Johnson off the throne.
Does it seem like this happened out of nowhere?
It didn’t and Koepka has the stories of life on the road in Kenya and Morocco and Kazakhstan to back it up.
But until this summer, Koepka was like a character in a movie, the guy who never got the girl because she was always looking at someone else, only to realize that the real thing had been right there in front of her. While we were watching Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson, Koepka was on the edges.
Until he wasn’t.
“Brooks has always felt he could be one of the best in the world. I’ve been with him five years and he’s always talked about winning majors and getting to No. 1 in the world. He’s always set high goals,” said Claude Harmon III, Koepka’s swing coach and part of the player’s tight team.
“To me, it continues to be interesting, it’s like all of this comes with an asterisk. He’s 28, he’s won three majors and he’s No. 1 in the world. Look at who else has done that. It’s a pretty small list.”
Winning at Shinnecock Hills demonstrated the depth of Koepka’s game and his dogged belief in what he’s doing. If ballstriking carried him at Erin Hills, Koepka’s short game and putting was the difference at Shinnecock Hills. Different tune, different dance, same result.
Among his contemporaries, only Woods, Spieth and Rory McIlroy have done what Koepka has.
They didn’t spend the first four months of a season sitting on the couch waiting for a wrist injury to heal like Koepka did this year, when he missed the Masters. There were two long-term benefits from the short-term pain – Koepka’s wrist is now fine and, he said, “I fell in love with golf again.”
Koepka has the mindset of an elite athlete, using the hours he spends in the gym to set the foundation for the work he does on the course. Koepka estimates he spends 10 hours a week in the gym and he has the chiseled physique to prove it.
The question isn’t whether Koepka needs that much gym time but it’s his belief that the work makes him better. In golf, believing is the first fundamental.
There is a simplicity to the way Koepka approaches and plays the game. He doesn’t rely on a green-reading book and he doesn’t let the clock tick while determining every nuance of every shot he’s about to hit.
When he settles in over a shot, Koepka says his mind goes quiet.
“I’ve simplified the game so much,” Koepka said. “There’s no swing thought. There’s no anything. I’m not trying to work on anything while I’m out there. I’m just trying to hit the correct shot, and it’s always between two clubs. You just try to figure out, miss short or miss long. I think guys overcomplicate it a lot.”
When the moment arrives, whether it’s making a U.S. Open-saving bogey at the par-3 11th hole at Shinnecock Hills or making a birdie on the 16th hole at Bellerive to give himself a two-stroke cushion in the PGA, Koepka looks as comfortable as a guy in a recliner in his man cave. In Koepka’s mind, “pressure is a privilege,” Harmon said. It’s the heartbeat of competitive golf, chasing the opportunity to play when it matters the most.
“I just think pressure is all what you put on yourself. I can create pressure even when I’m home practicing if I set up a consequence for a bad shot. I think pressure comes from fear,” Koepka said.
Simple.
It may not be how everyone does it but it works for Koepka and he has no plans to change anything. By winning in South Korea, Koepka also knocked down the rap that he’s great in majors but not so great in so-called regular Tour events. He has five Tour victories, including those three majors, and six runner-up finishes.
“I feel like I’m a very good player but sometimes the results don’t always speak for themselves,” Koepka said.
“I didn’t win in college until my senior year. Sometimes some people are a little bit slower developing and I guess I was one of them, and then to hit my full potential – and I’m not even there yet. Hopefully that hits.”
Something to think about on the beach on New Year’s Day.