Brooks Koepka used a humbling 45th-place finish at last month’s Masters to revive his game and recover top form just in time to defend his title at the 106th PGA Championship.
The 34-year-old American seeks his sixth career major crown next week at Valhalla, having won last year at Oak Hill to become the first active LIV Golf player to capture a major.
“I think the big thing that kind of separates me is my ability to lock in and go someplace where I think a lot of guys can’t go,” Koepka said.
With LIV players banned from PGA Tour events, the only place for the best from both tours to compete are the majors, and Koepka was unhappy at how that went last month at Augusta National, where he was a runner-up last year.
“I think the embarrassment of Augusta really kicked things into overdrive for me and really having to put my nose down and grind it a little bit harder,” Koepka said.
Koepka won his first LIV title of the year last week at Singapore in a last PGA Championship tuneup.
“It’s nice to see some results and the hard work paying off,” Koepka said. “It’s all starting to come around. I’ve put in a lot of work. I like the way things are trending.
“Winning always helps, but I still have the same expectations every time I go tee it up and that’s to win. Those are my expectations.”
Koepka, known for raising his game at major tournaments, won the 2017 and 2018 US Opens, the 2018 and 2019 PGA Championships and last year’s PGA Championship.
“I’ve gone back-to-back at the PGA and the US Open. Hopefully looking to do it again,” Koepka said. “I don’t know if it has ever been done, but it would be kind of a cool thing.”
Tiger Woods has won back-to-back majors four times — 1999-2000 and 2006-2007 at the PGA Championship, 2001-2002 at the Masters and 2005-2006 at the British Open.
Walter Hagen won back-to-back British Opens in 1928 and 1929 and took a record four consecutive PGA Championships from 1924-1927 when it was a match-play event.
Koepka sees a key to his winning edge on the course is setting up his putts.
“Iron play is a huge part of that,” he said. “I think I’m a good ball striker. I’m pretty good inside eight feet I feel like. Normally when there’s a clutch putt, I feel like I do make it.”
Koepka downplayed his breakthrough major win for LIV last year, saying, “Yes, it helped LIV Golf, but you’ve got everybody that tees it up at a major championship ready to go win the thing.”
With such past major winners as Spain’s fifth-ranked Jon Rahm, Australian Cameron Smith and fellow Americans Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson in the LIV ranks, Koepka sees it only as a matter of time before another active LIV player takes home major hardware.
“It’s going to happen over time. There’s too many good players,” he said. “You look at it consistently, you’ve got Jon, Bryson, Dustin, Cam. Those are guys that are going to win quite a few majors.
“As long as we’re in them, I think there’s a good chance that people over the next four or five years will have a few. There are too many good players.”
There are 16 LIV players in the PGA Championship field, but there are concerns about future majors if LIV events continue not to receive world golf ranking points.
Merger talks are ongoing between the PGA Tour and LIV’s financial backers, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.
A framework merger agreement was announced last June, less than three weeks after Koepka’s win showed LIV talent could win majors, but the controversial move has not produced a final deal as negotiations have dragged into a fifth month beyond an original December deadline.
“Look, we have no idea. The PGA Tour has no idea,” Koepka said. “Our job is to go play golf and that’s it. That’s what we’re here to do.”