PGA Championship Recap: Koepka Wins Fourth Major

The last thing anyone expected to see was the headline, "Koepka hangs on to win PGA."

Brooks Koepka did in fact hang on to win the 101st PGA Championship at Bethpage Black on Sunday, needing every bit of the seven-stroke lead he carried into the final round.

The lead was still six with eight holes to play before things took a shocking 180. Koepka bogeyed four holes in a row, Nos. 11 to 14, allowing hard-charging Dustin Johnson to get within one. He also bogeyed 17 but escaped after Johnson himself bogeyed 16 and 17.

Koepka now has four major titles. He put this one at "the top of the list" because it was the hardest. Of course, it should've been the easiest.

"Today was definitely the most satisfying out of all of them for how stressful that round was – how stressful DJ made that," Koepka told reporters on Long Island. "I know for a fact that was the most excited I've ever been in my life there on 18."

After a final par to close out a two-stroke win at 8-under, Koepka described his day as "half-choking it away." Imagine the ignominy of becoming the first golfer to ever blow a seven-stroke, 54-hole lead – not just in a major but ever.

The 29-year-old Floridian now has won four of his past eight majors with a run more dominating than Rory McIlroy at the beginning of the decade and Jordan Spieth in 2015. It's the most dominating since Tiger Woods. He has regained possession of the No. 1 ranking in the world.

If Koepka had continued his overpowering ways of the first three rounds, his already through-the-roof confidence would have been even higher heading into the U.S. Open just four weeks from now. Instead, maybe, just maybe, the almost-disastrous finish will put a little crack in Koepka's self-assurance, enough for a little doubt to creep in – "Hey, I almost blew the biggest lead ever."

(We know it wasn't the biggest lead ever, but this is just make-believe as we are role-playing what could be in Koepka's head.)

"This one's definitely at the top of the list in how emotionally spent I am and how mentally spent I am," Koepka said.

As we saw with Woods at the Masters, it's hard to recover so quickly from such an emotionally and mentally draining life event. Woods had five weeks before Bethpage. Koepka will have only four till Pebble Beach.

He will be the favorite as he goes for his third straight U.S. Open title. Will he be able to recover in time? And how much will he think about almost blowing the PGA? In reality, had Johnson himself not faltered toward the end, Koepka would have blown it.

When a world champion boxer is knocked out for the first time, he's never exactly the same after that. Well, Koepka wasn't knocked out, but he was knocked down and pretty much staggered to the final bell.
  
Koepka had never had felt this pressure before. He might remember it the next time he's in the mix on a Sunday at a major, maybe just four weeks from now. Only then he might not have such a big lead to use as a crutch.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Tiger Woods
Missing the cut was a bit of a surprise, but regular readers will know we weren't surprised that Woods didn't have his A game. We've said all along not to expect much, just five weeks after his seismic win at the Masters. A really good clue came when Woods took a pass on the Wells Fargo, saying he was not ready to get back to tournament golf. That was a warning sign. We'll see Woods in two weeks at the Memorial and then in four at Pebble, where he should fare much better.

Dustin Johnson
Johnson has now finished second in both majors this year, and all four of them during his career. He was the only golfer to shoot all four rounds in the 60s (heck, Koepka shot only two in the 60s). Johnson is consistently in the mix at the biggest tournaments and, really, just about all tournaments. The fact that he hasn't won more majors is telling – we saw Johnson on the cusp yet again on Sunday only crumble after coming oh-so-close to catching Koepka. But the truth is, week in and week out, Johnson is a better fantasy option than Koepka. Maybe not in those four weeks of the year, but in just about all the others.

Harold Varner III
What a wonderful moment for Varner that he played in the final pairing of a major on a Sunday. What a shame that, after an opening birdie brought such promise, he simply imploded. He shot 11-over 81 and wound up tied for 36th. Still, nothing can take away what a great week it was for Varner, probably the best of his still burgeoning PGA Tour career even including Sunday. It will be interesting to see how he proceeds over the next few tournaments.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth tied for third, by far his best showing this season. He led the field in putting, gaining a whopping 10 1/2 strokes on the field. He's was nearly two and a half shots better than the No. 2-ranked Luke List, of all people. It doesn't matter how you finish third in a major, especially since you've been struggling as much as Spieth has. But some of things that have been plaguing him were still on display at Bethpage: 75th in driving accuracy, 49th in strokes gained: tee to green. Spieth is not going to putt this well every week. At some point his other 13 clubs will need to do their jobs. He can't keep putting pressure on his putter. Golf is probably less about putting than it's ever been. It's not a sustainable attack for Spieth. 

Patrick Cantlay
Cantlay tied for third with Spieth and Matt Wallace. That comes on the heels of a tie for ninth at the Masters. (In between those two majors he tied for third at Harbour Town.) Going back to last year, Cantlay also tied for 12th at the Open Championship. It's the dreaded small sample size, but we kinda think it will grow into a larger sample size. Cantlay is now up to a career-best No. 14 in the world.

Matt Wallace
Not only did the Englishman move inside the top-25 in the world for the first time, he earned enough non-member FedEx Cup points to become eligible for special temporary membership on the PGA Tour. He still has to accept such membership.

Rory McIlroy
Top-25s in consecutive majors would be a career milestone for a lot of golfers. But for McIlroy, they mark two disappointments in a row, especially coming on the heels of his brilliant start to the season, highlighted by his win at THE PLAYERS. He wasn't in the mix for a moment at either the Masters or PGA, even though he backdoored his way to tie for eighth at Bethpage. For better or worse, the top golfers are measured by majors, and McIlroy is now nearly five years removed since his last one. Suddenly, Koepka has just as many as McIlroy does. But like Johnson, McIlroy still might be a better weekly fantasy option than Koepka.

Jazz Janewattananond
The virtual unknown from Thailand was hanging around in the top-five on the leaderboard for much of the day, only to fade to a tie for 14th with a closing 77. This was only Janewattananond's second major. He's only 23.  He's up to No. 69 in the world.

Abraham Ancer
Mexico's top player not only made the cut in his first major, he tied for 16th. That was just enough to move him to No. 60 in the world rankings. That saves him from having to qualify for next month's U.S. Open, as the top-60 OWGR after the PGA are exempt.

Thomas Pieters
Remember early on Thursday morning when Twitter lost its collective junk over Pieters' triple bogey-bogey-double bogey start? He was 6 over through three holes, and some golfers were still at home sleeping. Never mind that Nos. 10 to 12 constituted the toughest three-hole sequence at Bethpage. Pieters not only battled back to finish only 4-over for the round, he also made the cut, then played the weekend at even-par to secure a top-25. That's right, he tied for 23rd. 

Cameron Champ
The darling of the fall season hadn't so much as made a cut since February, so tying for 54th had to feel almost like a top-10 or better. We have no idea why Champ, who had a win and two more top-10s in the fall and then opened 2019 with a T11 at the Tournament of Champions, completely fell apart after the New Year. What we may see now is him settling somewhere in between those two extremes.

Bubba Watson
Watson had played Bethpage very well through the years, and his tee-to-green game was firing on all cylinders again on Thursday and Friday. But he missed the cut on the number thanks some absolutely atrocious putting. Watson lost almost seven strokes to the field over those two days. Yet he came to the 18th green on Friday needing to only make a five-footer to play the weekend. He missed it.

Kevin Kisner
Kisner beat only 13 guys of the 156 in the field by shooting a 77-76 trunk-slam. It was a surprising result for a number of reasons. It was only Kisner's second MC in his past 14 majors and he was coming off three straight top-20s in PGAs. Plus, he has shown a propensity to be able to compete with the bigger hitters on the longer courses. Kisner will be back on more level ground this week at Colonial, a shotmaker's track, where he won in 2017.

Steve Stricker
One of the more remarkable yet little-known major stretches came to an end on Friday. Just four days after winning his first major, on the Champions Tour, Stricker missed the cut at the PGA. Stricker, 52, had made 27 straight cuts at majors dating to 2010, when he was a spry 43. Interestingly, winning the Regions Tradition may have contributed, as it's natural to have a letdown after a big win, not to mention one that extended to Monday, cutting back on Stricker's PGA prep time.

Rich Beem
The 2002 PGA champion (by one stroke over Woods) plays one tournament every year – the PGA. He missed the cut in 2017. He missed the cut in 2018. This year, he made the weekend on the number. In a really wonderful coda, Beem birdied both 17 and 18 on Sunday. He wound up in a tied for 80th. Beem still has a world ranking, and he jumped almost 600 spots, from 2,057 to 1,469. So cool, Beemer – oh, and it's only 15 months to the Champion's Tour.