Brooks, Barely — Koepka Hangs On At PGA For Fourth Major

Brooks and done.

For three days, it was a simple cake-walk for burly Brooks Koepka as he held the entire field hostage at the 101st PGA Championship.

Early in the week he proclaimed that it is easier for him to win majors.

That wasn’t the case on a testy Sunday when Bethpage Black bared its teeth and made it one long afternoon for Koepka and everyone else.  By day’s end, Koepka needed most of the seven shots that made up his 54-hole lead.

“I’m glad there were no more holes to play,” sighed the now four-time major champion who may have done something that no player in history has done — go back-to-back at the U.S. Open then back-to-back at the PGA.

“That was a stressful round of golf,” said the 29-year-old who has now won four of the last eight major championships.

Stressful?

First consider that Bethpage Black extracted its revenge in the form of high winds that gusted up to 35 miles per hour and made the final nine a severe survival test.

Koepka, who looked so unflappable for 54 holes, found his mettle tested on that back nine when he suffered four straight bogeys after his birdie at 10.  His lead dwindled and his Palm Beach pal, Dustin Johnson, was putting on the heat.

“D.J. put the pressure on,” said Koepka, who admitted he looked at the scoreboard.  “How could you not with all the “D.J.” chants going on up ahead. I heard everything.”  Those chants reached a crescendo when Johnson rolled in a birdie at the 15th to get to eight-under, Koepka’s lead had shrunk to a single shot as he headed for the 16th tee.

Then his workout buddy let him off the hook.

Johnson suffered bogeys at 16 then 17 to fall back to six-under and handed Keopka a three-shot lead with two holes to play.  Looked totally in the bag until Koepka three-putted 17.

Still, all he needed was bogey to finish and after yet another wayward drive, Koepka hit a layup, then wedged to five feet from 86 yards.  He smoothed that one in and let loose his first and only big fist-pump of the tournament.

“Incredible,” exclaimed Koepka afterward.  “This is so cool.”

What was supposed to happen, did, but not in the way most imagined.

“I gave myself a chance,” Johnson said.  “I know I needed to do something on the last three holes and didn’t.”

It was Johnson who opened some eyes late Saturday when he declared it possible to catch Koepka.

It seemed a pipe-dream at the time.

But by the time the screaming was over, Johnson threw it away with those two late bogeys.  “I played really, really well,” he said.  “The golf course was extremely difficult, I gave myself a chance.”

Right up until the 16th when he inexplicably blew his second over the green for the first of two late, sloppy bogeys.

As for Koepka, he went wire-to-wire in this championship for the first time since Hal Sutton did it back in 1983.

He has now won four majors in the last 23 months and will be the favorite next month when the U.S. Open is staged at Pebble Beach.

Brooks Koepka is a dominant physical, tactical and mental force.  He showed every bit of it on Sunday when a lesser player might have pulled a Greg Norman and totally blown the deal.

Not Koepka.

He’s a closer and proved it once again.

Final PGA Scoreboard: