US PGA: Brooks Koepka continues dominance

A golfing version of Game of Thrones was capped by a bloody, brutal spectacle.

Brooks Koepka holds up the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the PGA Championship. Picture: AP

There was something fitting that on the day that the hit television series Game of Thrones came to an end here another battle for supremacy was taking place complete with similar levels of brute force and the festering threat of a bloody demise.

Brooks Koepka is already a ratings hit and into a gripping third season at the top. After this PGA Championship we can expect more to be commissioned.

He led by seven shots going into the final round and already people were crowning him. Luke List, starting in second place, said the rest were playing for second. Paul McGinley, the former Europe Ryder Cup captain and a wise observer, said that he expected him to extend his lead. The game was good, the “stoicism” off the charts. “He has that ‘f..k you’ attitude.”

Graeme McDowell battled well for a level-par round and also spoke of Koepka’s mentality. He said the American used “little chips” and “negative comments” to get him to a place only previously visited by Tiger Woods. “You can’t teach somebody to think the way Brooks Koepka thinks,” he said.

Xander Schauffele, starting in seventh, simply said it was “boring”.

However, high winds and history added doubts. The 50km/h gusts and memories of Greg Norman and Rory McIlroy blowing seemingly unassailable major leads meant there was always the chance of a plot twist. Step forward Dustin Johnson, the world No 1 and a man who knows plenty about Sunday mourning at the majors. When McDowell won the 2010 US Open, Johnson turned a three-shot 54-hole lead into a five-shot defeat. He also had a 12-foot putt to win the US Open in 2015. He missed that and then missed the four-footer for the tie.

Despite that profligacy it is a mystery why someone with his skill and muscle has not added to his solitary major triumph. He needed to play well and hope that Koepka imploded.

He did the first bit. Meanwhile, on the first hole, Koepka missed the fairway and fluffed a chip. He had his first bogey over the first six holes in four days. His playing partner, Harold Varner III, then made his birdie. The lead was down to five.

The most ominous threat always looked like being Johnson and, when he birdied the 4th and 6th, it was clear that this might not be as comfortable as everybody had thought.

There were interesting subplots all around the increasingly windswept stage. Varner is a new face at the majors and has lots of character. He prepared for his first professional win at the Australian PGA in 2016 by hitting the hotel casino — “Blackjack is my game” — and has given interviews by the medium of glove puppet.

He also thinks that golf is too elitist and that players are dull. “If you took golf away from some players they would be very hurt,” he once told The Times. “I would dwell on it for a day and get a job.”

He might dwell on this a bit longer. That early birdie was followed by three putts from 11 feet on the 2nd and an excursion into the woods on the 3rd for successive double bogeys. He dropped five shots in three holes. Roll credits.

Varner is also an African-American and helped to make the leaderboard more ethnically diverse than most. Jazz Janewattananond is also a welcome addition, a smiley 23-year-old from Thailand who has ruffled more senior feathers here. He has been a joy, going for his shots, a local frozen food manager as his caddie, confessing he got tongue tied when he met Woods on the range.

A professional since he was 15 and playing his first year on the European Tour, he has bags of promise and clearly no baggage. “I love you, Jazz,” screamed a burly New Yorker by the 4th. He grinned and recovered the shot that he had dropped on the 1st.

Another newcomer having the time of his life was Matt Wallace. After 63 holes he was one-under for the day and in third place.

That was testament to a work ethic that saw him out on the putting green hours before his tee-time. Danny Willett was also continuing his return to form until a torrid run around the turn. Justin Rose was one of many having a day to forget.

Koepka, though, had done enough to show that he is a special talent — the course record, the 36-hole record at the majors, the chance of a fourth major in eight starts, matching McIlroy’s tally and something Sir Nick Faldo said would signify “seriously phenomenal dominance”.

At 29 he obviously has the late-blooming game to win more majors, but he had sounded as if he is ahead of the field in terms of his mind.

Anybody in golf would love to play poker with McIlroy, a man who wears his heart and soul on his sleeve when having nothing up them.

Like Johnson, it is hard to fathom quite why he has struggled to add to his major tally, but he is having a stellar year on tour and deserves credit for at least fighting to make the cut and then posting a final round of 69. Meanwhile, up the leaderboard, Koepka faced the climactic mind game as he eyed another title.

The Times