Is Brooks Koepka back? The guy in U.S. Open contention looks a lot like the old Brooks

New York Times

20 hours ago

OAKMONT, Pa. — Not that anyone particularly noticed, but Brooks Koepka came and went from the last two majors with a pair of missed cuts and early flights home. Rounds of 74 and 75 at Augusta National. Rounds of 76 and 75 at Quail Hollow. A few long walks to nowhere.
This was the same guy who, two summers ago, following long bouts of injuries and frustrations, won his fifth career major and was, by all accounts, 'back.' He'd gone 1,463 days between winning the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage to the 2023 PGA at Oak Hill, but it was all worth it, he said at the time, sitting next to the Wanamaker Trophy, to prove he was strong enough to fall all the way down and still return to the top.
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Except now it's been 752 days since Oak Hill.
Koekpa is a player who, through sheer force of talent, seems capable of winning any major at any time. But recent years have come to present a man embarking happily into the throes of first-time fatherhood while seemingly entering a career twilight coming maybe a little faster than it should. The injuries had taken their toll. The move to LIV Golf was well-timed. Koepka seemed to be on a playing trajectory more closely resembling Dustin Johnson than Rory McIlroy, despite Koepka, 35, being a year younger than McIlroy.
Three weeks ago at Quail Hollow, standing in the 18th fairway, Koepka looked over to the ropeline, getting the attention of the family nanny. With his 2-year-old son, Crew, in the stroller, he motioned directions for them to walk around the 18th green and meet him near the exit. Koepka then hit his approach to the green, walked up the fairway in a low Friday afternoon light, and wrapped up his second round. As he had for the better part of two days in Charlotte, the 35-year-old looked mostly unfazed by a T124 finish and only 13 greens hit in regulation. Heading out that day, Koepka was asked by a reporter to stop and chat about the state of his game, but replied only, 'I'm good, brother,' never breaking stride on the way to the parking lot.
It was hard not to see a different guy than the one who once won four of eight majors between 2017 and 2019. It was hard not to hear a different guy than the one who said at Bethpage that only a few players were capable of beating him.
So, yes, it was hard to imagine Koepka seriously competing at the 2025 U.S. Open.
But what happened here on Thursday was no figment of the imagination.
There was Koepka, grinding his way across Oakmont, looking like one of the toughest players of the last quarter-century doing his thing on one of the toughest courses ever created. An eagle on No. 4. Back-to-back closing birdies to erase a pair of bogeys early on the back nine. A 2-under 68. One of 10 players in the 156-man field to finish under par. A tie for third, two shots off a lead held by J.J. Spaun.
'Played pretty solid,' Koepka said, lamenting a missed fairway on the 10th, resulting in a bogey, and a missed 3-foot putt for par on No. 14. Shrugging, he added, 'Probably had a chance to shoot 4-under.'
Apparently, snapping a streak of 28 consecutive major championship rounds outside the top 10 wasn't enough.
This is the Koepka golf came to know a long time ago. The one who showed up to the game's biggest, baddest test thinking he was the biggest, baddest player. The one whose 15th club was confidence.
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Turns out he's been on a bit of a journey.
Koepka said Thursday that since roughly the first weekend of April, his swing was in a place of such discomfort that he rarely knew how he was swinging, let alone where the ball was going. When he thought he'd hit a cut, he'd watch the ball draw. When he felt as if he'd blocked it, he'd watch it sail straight. Nothing made sense. Worse than that, he didn't know why or what to do.
'I just had no sense of reality of where things were,' Koepka said. 'My perception was so far off.'
As these things go, Koepka's game was broken, and it, in turn, broke him.
'You didn't want to be around me,' he went on. 'It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven't been happy. It's been very irritating.'
Things came to a head Monday at Oakmont. Koepka was in the middle of a practice round when Pete Cowan, his longtime coach, finally cut through the noise and said some things that needed to be said. According to Koepka, the two spent 45 minutes together in a bunker. Cowan spoke. Koepka listened.
'I just sat there, and he scolded me pretty well,' he said.
Among the issues at hand is Koepka executing the swing feels that he is working toward versus perceptions he has in his mind of how he's swung in the past. Koepka has long sought versions of his swing. He pointed out that if you watch the film of his swing Thursday, it should closely resemble his swing from roughly 2013-14, back when his career began taking off.
No one can pretend to know where Koepka has been in this search, but Thursday's comments amounted to an all-time great player explaining that he needed to find his swing to find himself. Some kind of odyssey, one that not only wore on him, but wore on those around him. Koepka said he reached the point of having to apologize to those around him, both his family and his team.
None of that was seen in the player on the course Thursday. Really, you'd never have known. It just looked like Brooks Koepka.