With Brooks Koepka locked in and PGA Championship ahead, history at stake for game's most enigmatic golfer

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE – MAY 05: Brooks Koepka of Smash GC lines up his putt on hole 3 during day three of the LIV Golf Invitational – Singapore at Sentosa Golf Club on May 05, 2024 in Singapore, Singapore.

The last time we got a post-Masters vow from Brooks Koepka, it resulted in his fifth major championship win, a close victory over Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland at Oak Hill for his third PGA Championship. That came 51 weeks ago.

On Sunday, Koepka disclosed a different promise he’d made following this year’s Masters.

“I guess I’ve gone back-to-back at the PGA and the U.S. Open,” he said. “Hopefully looking to do it again. I don’t know if it’s ever been done, but it would be kind of a cool thing. I’ve tried to three-peat. Not very good at it out here and at the majors. I think the embarrassment of Augusta [National] really kicked things into overdrive for me and really having to put my nose down and grind it a little bit harder and having to look my team in the eye and apologize. I’m not looking to do that again.”

That grind led to a top 10 finish at LIV Golf Adelaide and his fourth victory on that tour, one of a two-shot variety over Cam Smith and Marc Leishman in LIV Golf Singapore. Across his last two tournaments since the Masters, Koepka has only been defeated by eight golfers total; now, he takes a trophy into the second of four major championships this year.

Is all of this — this renewed focus and nose-to-the-grindstone attitude — going to result in a sixth major title for Brooks?

Koepka is not the favorite for the PGA Championship at Valhalla, but nobody who is capable of winning the tournament is more decorated at the game’s biggest events. Koepka has more PGA Championship (tree) than almost everyone else in the field has majors. Heck, he has more major wins (five) than almost everyone else in the field has PGA Tour victories.

Walking into Valhalla off the victory in Singapore reminds of 2023 when he went to the Masters off a LIV Golf Orlando win and nearly took the green jacket before falling to Jon Rahm in a 30-hole duel on Sunday at Augusta National.

Koepka’s major championship record is peerless. The only golfers in his generation who can lay claim to something tantamount to what he has accomplished are Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. Yet Koepka is one year younger than McIlroy and seemingly much closer than Spieth to capturing his next major.

What is fascinating about Koepka is that he seemingly has the ability to turn it off and on at will. This has always been the cliche about him, but it’s difficult to not give it some credence when he literally says it out loud like he did on Sunday following the event in Singapore.

“I think I’m a good ball striker,” Koepka said when asked what gives him the winning edge in major championships. “I’m pretty good inside 8 feet, I feel like. Normally, when there’s a clutch putt, I feel like I do make it, but 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.”

It’s that last part that intrigues those of us who follow major proceedings closely. My ability to lock in and go someplace where I think a lot of guys can’t go.

This is not a new idea for Koepka. He has uttered some variation of it for years. It’s a different way of voicing his old trope about how there are only 10 or 15 or 20 guys who can win when the majors roll around. But it gets at his secret superpower, which is also Scheffler’s secret superpower: focus and commitment.

Scheffler is better than anyone else in the world at blocking out noise, not worrying about what’s going on around him. It reminds of the famous Rudyard Kipling poem, “If”. Here is the opening line:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

Nobody right now is better at keeping his head than Scheffler. However, if there is somebody nearly as good at doing so, it’s Koepka. That’s surely what he means by going someplace where I think a lot of guys can’t go. It’s an ability to let the chaos reign and to emerge with yet another trophy at the end of an event because of commitment to each shot, execution of a disciplined plan and the blinders you need to win a major. It is an extraordinarily difficult task that drains a player mentally and emotionally, which might be why Koepka struggles to get going for non-majors.

Koepka has spoken often about the mind games present in the last few groups at a major. After he was upended by Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA Championship, he spoke cryptically about things that Sunday that happened that he wouldn’t let happen again. Nearly the same situation played out at the 2023 Masters against Rahm. While Koepka did not disclose what bothered him in that loss, it may be as simple as the fact that he let certain things control what he was doing instead of staying mentally fortified enough for it to unfold the other way around.

Regardless, if Koepka is able to keep his head at this year’s PGA, and his tee-to-green game is what it has been since the Masters, he’s probably going to be staring at the possibility of joining some exclusive company on the weekend.

• Only three men have won 4+ PGAs: Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Walter Hagen
• Only three golfers have won 6+ majors since 1980: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Nick Faldo
• Only 11 golfers have won 6+ majors after World War II

That is insane company Koepka could join a few weeks as he turns 34 with several years ahead of him to increase that total.

It gets lost a bit because he’s such an historically odd figure in the sport and he plays on LIV Golf, but there is tremendous history at stake every time Koepka tees it up at a major. There always exists the opportunity for him to go someplace a lot of guys cannot.

Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter and Greg DuCharme recap Taylor Pendrith’s first win on the PGA Tour. Plus, Brooks Koepka’s win ahead of the PGA Championship. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.