OAKMONT, Pa. — Where in the world has this been?
If Brooks Koepka isn’t wondering this himself, the rest of the golf world is after watching him shoot a 2-under-par 68 in Thursday’s opening round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont to insert himself firmly in the thick of things to win another major championship.
For a player with five major championships on his résumé and who’s the last to win back-to-back U.S. Opens (2016-17), it feels like Koepka has been in Witness Protection recently.
He missed the cut at both the Masters and PGA this year.
His results in majors since he last won one, at the 2023 PGA: missed cut, missed cut, T-43, T-26 (last year’s U.S. Open), T-26, T-45, T-64, T-17 (at 2023 U.S. Open).
This season, he has been a virtual nonfactor on LIV.
His most recent results on LIV this year, starting with last week in Virginia: tie for 33rd, T-17, T-30, T-18, runner-up (in Singapore), 35th, T-7 and T-33.
“I would say from the first weekend in April until about last week, you didn’t want to be around me,” Koepka said. “It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven’t been happy. It’s been very irritating. I had to apologize to … my wife, my son, everybody. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me.”
Koepka had developed a reputation as a natural-born killer in major championships.
He’s trying to find that again.
“I feel good,” he said. “It’s nice to put a good round together. It’s been a while. I’ve been working hard. [I] just got into some bad habits and bad swing positions. We worked pretty hard last week, [coaches] Pete Cowen and Jeff Pierce were on me pretty good, and Pete got into me again on Monday in the bunker for about 45 minutes. I just sat there, and he scolded me pretty well.”
Asked about the “scolding,” Koepka said: “I’ll put it this way: JT (Justin Thomas) thought he had to come check on me in the bunker. We were in there for about 45 minutes, and he was on the other side of the green. I saw him Monday night. We were at a Rolex function. He was like, ‘I was worried. Your head was down.’
“Yeah, I wasn’t happy with it, but it was something I think I needed to hear at the right time.”
Koepka said the last time Cowan ripped into him like that was at Erin Hills, where he won the PGA in 2017.
“I don’t like having ‘yes’ people around me,” he said, “I just want somebody to tell me the truth, tell me what’s going on, what they see. If I start swaying from being Brooks Koepka, then I want someone to call me out on it, and he did a helluva job on it.”