US PGA 2018: Golf major’s bizarrely flat finish

A golfing great rediscovering his mojo … and a muted champion. The PGA Championship produced one of the flattest finishes you will see.

Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka. Picture: AFP/AP

Brooks Koepka plays an immaculate round of golf at Bellerive Country Club, walks up the 18th fairway to nothing more than a yawning golf clap from a dispirited crowd, rolls his first putt to tap-in distance, ignores tradition and stuffs up his crowning moment by tapping in for a par when Adam Scott is yet to finish the hole, shakes hands with the Australian, shoves his ball back in his bag as if he’s had a casual quick nine with his mates after work on a Friday afternoon, pecks his girlfriend on the cheek, gives his mother a hug and then wanders away as though he’s ready for an afternoon snooze.

The US PGA Championship has produced one of the most bizarrely flat finishes you will see at a major sporting event. When Koepka rolls in his final putt, the masses pretty much roll their eyes. It’s oddly underwhelming and yet hardly a shock.

Megastars are mega whether they win or lose, and the final day of the PGA has been dominated by a balding, middle-aged man who’s trying to win one more major for the road. Tiger Woods has captured the imagination, the support, the bulk of the TV coverage and the vast majority of the ESPN highlights reel — while coming second and watching someone else quietly walk off with the trophy.

Brooks Koepka poses with his mother, Denise Jakows and girlfriend, Jena Sims. Picture: Getty Images

Woods’s final round of six-under-par 64 has been big-time sport at its electrifying best. It’s prompted the sorts of roars that only the true greats — Woods, the tennis players Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and the Central Coast Mariners’ Usain Bolt — can evoke in their most adrenalised performances.

There’s something different in the air when greatness is at work. The crowd support takes on a life of its own, bordering on hysteria. One player is so favoured by the masses that his rivals cease to exist. While Koepka has peeled off his superb 66 in expressionless and metronomic fashion to post 16-under for the tournament and beat Woods by two strokes, Woods has let it all hang out. The fist pumps after his eight birdies. The fury when fairways have been missed. Ah, f..k it! He’s been compelling viewing.

His walk from the 18th green to the scorer’s hut has created crowd scenes like Mick Jagger may have received in the glory days of the Rolling Stones. “I could hear it,” Koepka says later.

Woods has been an unbeatable twenty-something brat who could win with his eyes closed. Now he’s a more humble forty-something who’s trying his guts out for just one more triumph. His pre-round practice has been like something out of Caddyshack. When his round has begun, he’s failed to hit a fairway until his 10th hole. Sheer willpower has kept him in the hunt but in the end, he’s still without a major since winning his 14th at the 2008 US Open.

“I played hard,” Woods says in his post-round interview. “It was a bit of a struggle with my game today. I was just hanging in there, grinding it out and just trying to make as many birdies as possible. This golf course was giving it up. I made a little run but I’m going to come up a couple of shots short.

Golf fans turned out in force to follow Tiger Woods at Bellerive Country Club. Picture: Getty Images

“I had a hard time even in my warm-up. I was hitting it right. hitting it left. I just had to pick a side. Am I going to miss it way right, or way left? It was a struggle until I found a little bit of something on the back nine. I was just hanging in there with my mind, basically, and that got me through.”

Woods has finished his round about 15 minutes before Koepka and Scott have completed the tournament. A cacophony has been followed by virtual silence. To complete the muted conclusion to one of world sport’s most prestigious events, Koepka has finished before Scott.

The final stroke in a golf tournament is traditionally performed by the champion, but Koepka has asked Scott if he can finish it off anyway. While winning a major is meant to leave a player either jumping out of his skin in ecstasy or falling to his knees in relief, from Koepka there’s been nothing. From the crowd, even less.

For atmosphere, the event has ended with Woods’ final putt … a birdie that has made the walls shake. The most thrilling moment of the final day? Woods stiffing his nine-iron from 164 yards on the 15th hole. The crowd response has been mega for a 42-year-old whose private and professional lives have been in absolute ruins before his ongoing attempt at a recovery from the public humiliations and frustrations he’s endured.

“These fans were so positive all week,” Woods says. “I can’t thank them enough for what they were saying out there, and what it meant to me. As a player just trying to come back and win a major championship again … I’m just so thankful to be here.”