Brooks Koepka’s hopes of winning the US Open will not be helped by the fact that he no longer boasts a significant advantage over his rivals when it comes to power.
The US Open, of course, will be held at Shinnecock Hills next week. It was Koepka who emerged victorious when the event was previously held in Southampton, back in 2018.
There are now question marks over whether Koepka will be in the field for the third major of the year. The 36-year-old withdrew from the RBC Canadian Open ahead of the final round due to a hand injury.
It was a real shame because he seemed to be trending in the right direction. Koepka was on course for one of the best putting weeks of his career at TPC Toronto.
How Brooks Koepka’s game has changed since he won the US Open at Shinnecock Hills
Obviously, it is dangerous to ever rule Koepka out when it comes to the majors. He is a player with more major wins than victories at regular PGA Tour events.
And speaking on Fried Egg Golf ahead of next week’s tournament – and before his withdrawal – Andy Johnson reflected on how Koepka has changed since his win in New York eight years ago.
“Whether he contends or not this year, I think the win at Shinnecock Hills is about as good of a US Open achievement as you can get. When I think about all of Brooks’s majors, the Shinnecock Hills Open is the one that I think of as quintessential Brooks, where he played the golf course smart. He hit lots of driving irons,” he said.
“What I think about the most is there were a lot of excellent approach shots, and just excellent play on the back nine to close out the US Open in 2018, but I think about the up and down for bogey on 11. And then the up and down from, he was about 50 yards short of 14 green. It was humming down wind to a front pin, and the up and down there, as these two, that’s Brooks Koepka in a nutshell at a major championship.
“I think distance is important everywhere. I don’t think distance is like a prerequisite at Shinnecock. And when I look at like, what’s the big difference between Brooks Koepka today and seven years ago or eight years ago when they played at Shinnecock is he’s not overwhelmingly powerful anymore because of the way the tour has just gotten faster. And you lose a superpower, you aren’t going to be the same dominant force that he was.”
The skill Brooks Koepka has never got enough credit for
Koepka was golf’s ultimate prizefighter for a number of years. He did not appear to have extra gear in regular events. But he could certainly find it when the pressure was on in the majors.
Koepka won four out of the eight majors he played between the 2017 US Open and the 2019 PGA Championship. He also won the Wanamaker Trophy for a third time in 2023.
It was remarkable that he was able to raise his game so consistently on the biggest stages. But it seems that he possessed a skill that many did not give him enough respect for.
Johnson noted that Koepka was one of the very best he has seen when it comes to respecting the challenge he faced every time he teed it up in a major.
“I think it will always go under the radar and under-talked about the way he understood how to attack a golf course and understands how to attack a golf course,” he said.
“He talked after Oak Hill about this at the US Open in LA, how if you want to understand a golf course, you stand on the back of a green and you look back and I know where I want to be approaching the green from for different pins. I think because of his persona and his personality, he will never get the credit for the golf brain that he had. And Shinnecock was that moment of this is a place that is the peak place to win a US Open.”
The best years of Koepka’s career may be behind him now. However, that course management and experience of winning some of the game’s biggest prizes means that he can never be completely written off.
Certainly, no one should be surprised if Koepka adds a sixth major title to his record in the coming years.
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