Koepka wins PGA Championship, vanquishes demons and boosts LIV

PITTSFORD, NY — Six weeks ago on Sunday, Brooks Koepka wasn’t sleeping. He had to worry and chase demons. After it all—the terrible knee injury, the pangs of unfulfilled ambition, the taunts, and the splenic rupture in the professional golf he helped personify—he’d rallied to a Masters Tournament lead, and then he was fizzing.

He finally vowed, he recalled over the weekend at Oak Hill Country Club, never to “think the way I thought going into the last round.” On Sunday night, Koepka found his vindication: a two-stroke win at the PGA Championship, earning his first major tournament trophy since 2019. It was Koepka’s fifth major win, tying him with figures like Seve Ballesteros and Byron Nelson.

It also made him the first member of LIV Golf, the breakaway league funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, to win a major title since joining the year-old circuit. And while Koepka’s triumph at Oak Hill may do little to quell some criticisms of LIV — his ties to a repressive government, his contested intentions, his gleeful incitement to a financial arms race in an old sport — it finally put an end to the bickering over the question of whether men who play a few 54-hole tournaments can prevail on golf’s greatest stages.

It also silenced the idea, a notion that seemed a bit stranger after Augusta, that Koepka’s warring days were over. But this is a 33-year-old player whose 2022 main season results looked like this: missed cut, tied 55th, solo 55th, missed cut. It was easy to forget that in 2021 the order went like this: missed cut, tied for second, tied for fourth, tied for sixth.

At the end of last year, he strongly suspected that his recovery was almost over and that he could finally be relevant again. Around January, he has said, he was sure.

“He’s healthy again,” said Cameron Smith, who won the British Open last summer and joined LIV later in the year. “I think that gives a little bit of internal confidence, as well as being there and just doing your stuff.”

Things didn’t look that way last Thursday, when the prospect of Koepka outlasting a swarm of stars seemed impossible rather than unlikely. He had started his tournament with a two over par 72 and by his own admission was out of sorts and struggling to hit the ball the way he wanted. He couldn’t remember, he said, the last time he had hit so badly.

But he wasn’t that far behind as the tournament, the first major played at Oak Hill since a major effort to reinstate some of the daunting tests that characterize Donald J. Ross courses, emerged as one of the most terrifying PGA championships in recent times. decades, often reminiscent of the rigors of the 2008 game in Michigan’s Oakland Hills. Of the 156 players who competed last week, only 11 finished below par – a departure from 2013, when the PGA Championship was contested at Oak Hill and 21 players finished in the red.

The stinginess even came with the track, with its dangerous rough and humble bunkers, which was more compliant than before on Sunday. Smith, Cam Davis, Kurt Kitayama and Sepp Straka all shot 65s on Sunday, putting them high on the leaderboard. Patrick Cantlay, who made one of the tournament’s sparse eagles, signed for a 66. Michael Block, whose day job is the lead pro at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, southeast of Los Angeles, had a hole-in-one at number 15 , the first PGA Championship ace by a club professional since 1996.

But much of Sunday’s attention went to Koepka, the burgeoning Norwegian talent Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler, the No. 2 player in the Official World Golf Ranking. Koepka, his status shriveled because of his ties to LIV, whose tournaments are not accredited in the rankings system, came in at number 44 on Sunday. (The PGA of America, which hosted the tournament that ended on Sunday, differs from the PGA Tour, LIV’s rival .)

Koepka entered the first tee box with a one-stroke lead and quickly doubled his margin when he made a birdie on the second hole. He had played from hole to par for the first three days, always reaching the green in two strokes, but had long putts left. On Sunday, with the pin on the front right of the green, he needed less than five feet.

His birdie putt on the third hole required even less, following his longest tee shot of the tournament on the hole known as Vista, extending his lead to three stokes.

The sixth hole, a threat to so many players in the tournaments, loomed. A par-4 challenge that finished the field in an average of 4.52 strokes, Koepka had survived well enough on Thursday, Friday and Saturday: par in each of the first three rounds. But on Sunday, his turn swerved right into an area near Allen’s Creek that should have been avoided. He took a drop and then, about 191 yards from the hole, hit it on the green and finally escaped with a bogey. Although Koepka followed up with another bogey, Hovland also stumbled at number 7.

On the turn, Koepka Hovland led with a lone hit. Scheffler, a steady sensation since winning the Masters last year, and 2020 US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, were three of the lead.

Koepka replied with a tantalizing streak: birdie, bogey, birdie. Hovland had a chance for a birdie at the 12th hole, but his 15-foot tap cut just to the left of the cup. With six holes to play, Koepka’s lead was down to two strokes. Two holes later it was one more.

Havoc for Hovland came in at number 16, when, after his tee shot arrived in a bunker, he wielded his nine-iron. With less than 175 yards to the hole, he swung and shot his ball – not on the green, but into the edge of the bunker. His fourth shot hit the green. A bogey putt missed, leaving him with a double bogey. Koepka, in the twilight of his pursuit for his third PGA Championship, made a birdie to claim a four-stroke lead.

Scheffler made a birdie putt on the 18th green soon after to narrow Koepka’s path. Koepka himself narrowed it down further with a bogey at number 17.

He came to the 18th tee, still, after all, with two shots to spare. He hadn’t made a bogey on the hole all week and went for 497 yards on Sunday. His tee shot shot 1,000 yards and smashed into the fairway, the towering grandstands in the distance and the grandstands full of spectators ready to see if Koepka was indeed back after all.

He reached the green with the next shot, and the applause rose as he marched up the escarpment. He knelt. He approached the ball, balanced himself and tapped it forward. The ball stopped just short – 3 inches, according to tournament officials.

Of course, there would be one last hiccup.

He tried again. The ball fell into the cup.

Indeed, after all, Koepka was back.