– After making a thrilling comeback from four up in the first six holes, to finally sign a card of 70 strokes, one under par, Jon Rahm breathed a sigh of relief. And the Barrika native referred to Brooks Koepka, looking for positive references for the upcoming rounds: “he is a master at starting slowly and then growing in the tournament”.
To what extent is the Spanish player right? Well, he is, he is. Specifically, Koepka has given real lessons on how to come back after a discreet start precisely in this tournament, the PGA Championship, which he has won three times. In two of his victories, the one in 2018, at the Bellerive Country Club, and last year’s, 2023, at Oak Hill, the Florida native was not even showing up in the hot part of the table after the first round, defying the great law of percentages, which practically leaves out of play in the majors anyone who is outside the top 25 after the first round.
In 2018 Koepka started in 33rd place, five strokes from the lead. And, even more tricky: in 2023 he started in 38th place, six strokes from the lead. In both cases, as is well known, he would end up winning the tournament (in 2019, his other PGA victory, he was the sole leader from Thursday to Sunday).
However, Brooks‘ formula for coming back was the same in both cases and is as simple to explain as it is difficult to put into practice. In 2018, at Bellerive, he signed the best record of the second day, a splendid 63 that took him straight to third place, two strokes from the lead. And last year, at Oak Hill, he again signed the best record of the second round, this time a 66 that placed him sixth, three strokes from the lead.
The matter did not end there… Also in both cases he reached the lead in the third round: At Bellerive he did it with the second best record on Saturday; at Oak Hill, with the best card. Then, on Sunday, he didn’t even need to sign the best record of the day to win, although in both cases he closed very solid rounds of golf.
Jon was right: Koepka has shown twice in the last six years, in this same tournament, that there is a way to come back. Now, of course, you try to be simply the best player on the field on Friday and Saturday…
If that wasn’t enough, something very similar also happened in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills, when he won his second US Open. There, he started on Thursday outside the top 40 of the tournament, six strokes off the lead… And once again he signed the best card of the day on Friday and ended up winning the tournament.
– Golf, sometimes, can be explained in a very simple way. With the same tee to green game he showed yesterday, exactly the same, if that were possible, Tiger Woods would have signed a 67 with some ease in his younger years, in the years of his tyranny, and not the 72 that is on his scoreboard. Of course, just like he did yesterday, he would have been saving delicate situations in the first third of the round; in addition, he would have taken advantage of one or even the two options he let slip on the par 5s of the 10th and 18th; he would also have made birdie for sure on hole 5 (two and a half meter option); and, above all, above all, he would not have three-putted on the last two holes of his round, 8 and 9… He would even have holed one of those two putts to finish the round. Is it the milkmaid’s tale? That’s what Tiger did for so many years, during so many rounds of golf in which he was not so brilliant: tell us the milkmaid’s tale and change the ending.
– The face of Scheffler after holing it from the fairway on hole 1, the first he played this week, was not one of disbelief, but neither of infinite joy or euphoria… A few days ago, in his appearance before the media, he acknowledged that he had been reflecting on how well everything was going: he had married his high school sweetheart, just had his first child, healthy and chubby, the green jacket rested in the closet… We can imagine him sitting on the porch of his house, thinking about these things, and his face would be the same as yesterday’s, on the fairway of hole 1: serene satisfaction, overflowing joy, but contained, with his feet firmly on the ground. And let the carousel he’s on keep turning.
