There have now been 100 PGA Championships.
It’s hard to imagine a better one than this Battle At Bellerive.
Things got absolutely crazy, loud and over-the-top on a raucous Sunday for the final round of the season’s last major championship.
This one was a fight and then some.
Tiger Woods started it — then Brooks Koepka finished it.
Ten years ago a closing 64 by Tiger Woods would have won him just about any major. But Woods’ best just wasn’t good enough to rattle Cool Hand Brooks.
All the reigning U.S. Open champion did was take the best Tiger had to offer, then the best from a resurrected Adam Scott. He took their best, then gave them his down the stretch.
By day’s end, all Woods got for his amazing 64, his lowest final round ever in a major, was a solo second place finish. Welcome to the year 2018, welcome to the world of Koepka, who has quietly won two of the three majors he played in this season and who will end up as the 2018 Player Of The Year when they vote on that stuff.
Back in the day the contenders would wilt under pressure from Woods. They fell at his feet like 12-year-olds at a Taylor Swift concert.
But not on this Sunday.
Koepka countered Tiger’s 64 and Scott’s 65 with a 66 of his own. He started the day with a two-shot lead and ended it that way
Throughout the afternoon, he felt the old “Tiger Effect.” The roars went up all over the place as Woods made something out of nothing. He missed every fairway on the front nine and still shot three-under par to insert himself squarely in the hunt. Woods made the fight, no doubt about it.
Woods got himself together a bit at the turn, birdied 12 and 13 and it was game on, Woods was making his move toward win No. 80 and a 15th major.
A bogey at 14 stung him. Woods will look back and know his driver cost him this shot at his first major in 10 years. A wild drive plugged in the hazard at 17 and best he could do was salvage par, which he did. Then just for good measure, he threw in a closing birdie from 15 feet, fist pump and all. Second place didn’t suck in Tiger’s new world.
The roars, the move up the leaderboard by Woods — none of it bothered Brooks.
He turned in 33 to get to 14-under in a hurry and sent a message. He put up five straight pars before back-to-back birdies at 15 and the difficult 16th got him to 16-under. Sorry Adam, sorry Tiger, this guy, this Cool Hand Brooks guy is a closer, he’s the real deal. The footnotes say he’s won three of the last seven major championships.
The fans have yet to embrace him.
He’s a quiet personality but he’s as focused as a man can get when these big ones are on the line.
Koepka ended up winning two of the three majors he played in this season. Remember, his wrist injury cost him a Masters appearance.
“Absolutely not,” said Koepka, asked if he could imagine winning a pair of majors in 2018.
“It’s actually mind-boggling. My focus — for some reason the majors just get my attention. Every shot is so important.”
The Tiger roars didn’t break that focus either.
“I could hear when Tiger made his little run,” Koepka said. “A lot of noise out there. It was fun. I enjoyed the noise and the roars.”
He also enjoyed hoisting the hefty Wanamaker Trophy.
No problem for Brooks.
After all, this is a guy who can rip off 14 reps on the bench press with 225 pounds on the bar.
Hoisting that 27-pound trophy was no challenge.
Final PGA Championship Results:
8 Comments
baxter cepeda
Few takes for me:
First, first time Tom writes a 100% troll free article. No jabs at the tour or Tiger or anyone.
Second, cool hand Luke is officially overused on golfers. Dustin has been called that for years.
But finally Dustins bigger version of himself is special in that cool way for sure. But its so much more with Brooks.
While I too find myself struggling to embrace Brooks and all his success right now, it wasnt always like that for me.
A few years ago I was obsessed in a good way with the route Brooks took to the big time.
In Tom edrington fashion the blue chipper told the PGA Tours minor league system he was not interested in paying their dues.
And instead left on a European Tour journey which has to have had an huge role in what is happening now.
All American Brooks made those odd hour Euro tour coverages more Digestable.
By the time the Euro part of his career ended I was sure Brooks would take those experiences to go on to win multiple majors and at the very least be rewarded with one Open by now…
something great had to happen for all his character building sacrifices in Europe: eating sub standard food, playing in the cold, slower greens and so forth.
Ironically an Open win has not happened yet for Brooks and I certainly was not expecting 3 majors by now, especially not 3 of 7.
But its kind of no surprise as there are now clearly So many ways Europe seems to have helped Brooks.
The slow sopping wet fairways and greens at Bellrieve probably reminded brooks of those Euro greens.
The lush rough in Europe seems to be helping Brooks in these majors.
While guys like Jordan spent the week second guessing people, Brooks was single minded, like a journeyman Euro Tour player whom knows no one cares what he thinks.
While one man, Tiger, whom is now as close to all the way back as possible, had seemingly every single fan—incredible considering all the trolls whom attempt to drive fans away from liking Tiger— Brooks was single minded, like one of the few Americans playing in Europe knowing no one is on their side.
Brooks Korpka is ready for anything golf has to throw at him.
Theres a lot of talk about guys not fearing Tiger these days. I think there still are a lot, including big names.
But Brooks is clearly not scared of Tiger.
Why would he be?
Brooks is seemingly so strong mentally from his pro experiences and physically from his gym work he seems to have literally suppressed his nerves. Killed them no less. Non existant.
Tiger has made a lot of guys rethink their plan of attack throughout his career.
But This morning body building golfers like Tiger and Rory may be second guessing Chamblee and others convincing them bigger is not better.
Like another Nike star Everyone has to be thinking “I wanna be like Brooks”.
Right now why would Brooks crumble to Tiger or anyone? At the minute Brooks is the guy who has people, even Tiger, feeling like they need to do something extra.
Tigers patient strategies almost worked in the Open but they were never going to work on Brooks. Tiger needed more urgency earlier in the tournament. Tiger, whom still has never won a major from behind, like everyone else, knew catching brooks was going to take something extra. The kind of something extra that usually leads to mistakes. Despite the 64 for Tiger critical mistakes from needing to do too much is exactly what happened, such as at the par 5 17th. Par was not good enough.
Brooks made that happen.
That is as close to Tiger effect as it gets. Only its Brooks doing it with no end in sight.
Good luck to Tiger and everyone else catching this golfing monster.
Tom Edrington
Baxter, thanks for checking in, we just call ’em like we see ’em. Wasn’t thrilled with a couple of times the PGA really slowed down play for those cup repairs….also, the PGA makes a ton of money on this stuff yet raises the dues on its members every year. I don’t like that at all and I’m sure you wouldn’t. Yeah, Brooks is the real deal. I played golf with his younger brother two years ago and now Chase is “chasing” the dream over on the European Tour. Good place to play, you see a larger variety of courses, not all are perfectly manicured. As for Tiger, it will be interesting to see how many times he can get to that level. His driver continues to hold him back. He’s wild when he tries to hit it long, Brooks is not. The problem for Tiger is that the talent pool now is very, very deep.
JimmyD5cc
If you watched on TV, all you saw (85% of the time) was Woods. Only Koepka won despite the coverage that led most to believe that Woods would win. Woods used to be great, now he is just another good player!
Tom Edrington
Yeah, Jimmy, Jim Nance was getting all excited, throwing out “No. 80 and No. 15” to excite everyone at home. Tiger is finding out this talent pool is deep and guys like Brooks are unflappable. Adam Scott’s driver didn’t hold up and he putts horribly, coming into this last major with only one top 10 this year, they had to give him a “Special Invite” for him to even be in the field. As for Tiger, he always hogs the attention, doesn’t he?
guiltyhd
The coverage sucked all tiger and the commutators now you see why golf is losing interest in fans on TV if tiger won would they all give him a sponge bath ?
Tom Edrington
I think you are right……one party to blame is the Golf Channel…..they can’t stop talking about Tiger. Today they suggested his comeback better than Hogan’s. Hogan nearly killed, hit head-on by a bus. Tiger’s undoing was mostly by his own actions and choices. That being said, they’re already talking about him winning The Masters next April.
baxter cepeda
Tiger is the reason we golf has less fans? Nonsense. Golf loses too many fans anytime Tiger is out. Its like some golf observers do not actually observer very well. GC gives people what they want, Tiger. The people whom do not want as much Tiger coverage in golf are a huge minority.
Tom Edrington
Baxter, there you go again, where did we write that Tiger is the reason golf has less fans? Sorry, you won’t find it because it wasn’t written……we wrote that Tiger made the battle, started it, Koepka ended it….Brooks didn’t crumble at Tiger’s feet the way guys used to……Woodland did, he played exactly the way guys used to play when paired with Woods, so did Scott, wilted the last two holes the way guys used to wilt for Tiger.