It’s that time of the year again.
Koepka Time.
Major monster Brooks Koepka turned in his best performance of the year in the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, one week ahead of the PGA Championship, the first major championship of 2020.
Koepka’s inner timepiece centers around the game’s four biggest championships, and with the clock ticking down toward the 102nd edition of the PGA Championship next week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, he dialed his game up at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee.
While Koepka will rue his 72nd-hole double bogey that ended his chance of catching eventual winner Justin Thomas and successfully defending his title, his swagger returned this week and he looked whole again.
He certainly looked the best he’s looked since he had a stem-cell procedure on his left knee last September and reinjured the partially torn patella tendon seven weeks later when he slipped on concrete in last fall’s CJ Cup in South Korea.
FedEx St. Jude Invitational: Money list | Winner’s bag | Photos
On Sunday, Koepka briefly took the lead on the back nine with a birdie on 13 and finished in a tie for second after rounds of 62-71-68-69. He trailed Thomas by one entering the final hole but pulled his tee shot into a water hazard. Other than that and a slow start in his second round, he was Koepka again.
“I feel good. I feel like my game’s right there. This is where we wanted to be, peaking for the PGA,” said Koepka, 30, who had one top-10 in his last 12 starts heading to Memphis and went MC-T62-MC in his last three starts.
“I feel like my game’s right there, everything’s solid,” he continued. “I hit a lot of good putts today, just didn’t go in. I’m pleased with it.”
Not. Over. Yet.@BKoepka makes birdie on 17.
He's 1 back with 1 to play. 👀#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/VU6GZ2PVSM
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 2, 2020
Peaking? The guy always peaks for majors. He’s won four of the last 10 he’s played – the U.S. Open in 2017 and 2018 and the PGA Championship in 2018 and 2019. Last year, he also tied for second in the Masters, finished second in the U.S. Open and finished in a tie for fourth in the Open Championship.
Starting Thursday at TPC Harding Park, he’ll try to become the first player to win the PGA Championship three consecutive years since stroke play began in 1958.
“I feel like I’m playing good, so I’m excited to tee it up,” in the PGA Championship, he said. “Everything’s moving in the right direction. So once you lose, doesn’t matter if it was by one or 10, it doesn’t matter. So pleased with it, moving in the right direction and looking forward to next week.”
Koepka started to look forward to this week after he missed the cut in last week’s 3M Open in Minnesota. The extra two days gave him the opportunity to hook up with his coaches and make some adjustments to his setup. After Saturday’s round, he said he was hitting the ball as well as he has since last year’s PGA Championship, when he held off Dustin Johnson at Bethpage Black in New York.
And then he said better things were ahead.
“I think there’s still a little bit of room for improvement just for comfort as far as the changes we made that are only five, six days old now,” he said.
For 17 holes in the final round, he was right. And per his history, he could very well be right again next week in San Francisco.
“I felt confident. I knew I was hitting it good, I knew I was playing a lot better than I had previously,” Koepka said before leaving TPC Southwind. “Pleased with (the week). Why wouldn’t I be?”
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