It was no surprise that Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson finished first and second in the golf season's second major, the USPGA, at the weekend. The Bethpage Black course is punishingly long. Punishing through length and also the density of the second cut and deep rough for those who stray off the fairway. Koepka and Johnson are the most reliable of the "bombers" (the long hitters) and so will be both far and sure (er, I've heard that motto somewhere....) more often than most. And they hit it so far that, even if they stray off the fairway, they can often reach the green with a lofted club - a wedge or at most 9 iron - giving them a better chance of successfully controlling the shot. The shorter hitters - even those who still hit it a long way - stand a much lower chance from those positions with a middle iron.
So the course was set up to favour Koepka, but his achievement was remarkable. The display of pure power was beyond what we have seen since Tiger Woods first came out and obliterated championship golf courses. Indeed the Sky Sports commentator Wayne Riley took to calling Koepka "King Kong". (Dustin Johnson already has a nickname, of course. For most of the world it's "DJ" but to Mrs H it's "cokehead").
In the run up to the PGA the Golf Channel pundit Brandel Chamblee (yes, they have a dedicated golf channel and that's not a made up name - I think) made a bit of an ass of himself by pondering whether Koepka is a great player or simply having "a good run". Noting that Koepka ended up second in the Masters partly because he three-putted five times in the four rounds, Chamblee said "he's on a heck of a run. Nick Faldo hads a similar run. Lee Trevino had a similar run....is (Koepka) truly a great player - a staggering talent - or is he in a great run? Tiger and Jack, they won regular events at the same clip they won majors.....I just need more evidence...He won three majors that were more about power than accuracy. This week it will be equally about power and accuracy. Golf courses like this are a better measure...."
As Koepka had won three of the last eight majors (three of the last seven he had played in) that was rather going out on a limb. Now that it's four out of his last eight starts in majors it looks plain daft. In the end it was about power and bottle, as much as accuracy, as Koepka had to dig deep when he faltered on the last nine holes and Johnson closed the lead from seven shots to one, before Koepka steadied the ship and Johnson also started to drop shots. But my main quibble with what Chamblee said was not actually about Koepka. Yes, Koepka has the unusual record of having won twice as many majors as he's won regular USPGA tour events - four to two. This is what Chamblee meant about Nicklaus and Tiger winning tour events "at the same clip": Woods has won 66 USPGA Tour events in addition to his 15 majors and for Nicklaus the numbers were 55 and 18, so Koepka's small number of non-major wins in America is surprising. But Koepka has also won seven times in Europe and Japan and had four wins on the European Challenge Tour (the level down from the main tour) as he came up the hard way, driving himself between tournaments in a foreign country on his own. Maybe not sleeping in his car, as Gary Player did when he first came to the Open but at least, reputedly, changing his own wheel when he got a puncture. So not the gilded ascent of a Woods or, say, a Spieth. Also, if Koepka really has cracked peaking for the majors, as he more or less claimed before this tournament, that would be quite something and not to be knocked lightly. After all, it's what Olympic athletes and Team Sky cyclists work very hard to do.
No, the thing that got me was the reference to Faldo and Trevino. They both won six majors, putting them joint twelfth on the all time list of major winners, only one short of Arnold Palmer and Bobby Jones and one ahead of Seve Ballesteros and Phil Mickelson. And they weren't flashes in the pan, either. Sir Nick's wins spanned nine years (1987 to 1996) and Super Mex's a remarkable sixteen (1968 to 1984). So hardly "a good run". The comparison with Faldo that maybe makes sense is that Faldo, who came to golf late at fifteen years of age (yes, that's very late) was to some extent a manufactured golfer who, having competed near the top of the game without winning big, rebuilt his swing in order to win majors. Which he did because he was one of the ultimate competitors. It may be that the same is true of Koepka and he really can perform best when the stakes are highest.
In the first two rounds of the PGA Koepka was in the marquee group with Woods and Molinari. As Koepka built what was a record low score after 36 holes in that tournament, it looked like he was doing to Woods what Woods had done to so many in the past: overpowering the golf course and intimidating his opponents, striding off down the fairways ahead of his rivals with a stern game face on. There were some differences from Woods. Until Koepka faltered on the final nine holes and Johnson rallied, narrowing the lead from seven shots to one, he wasn't just longer than most of his opponents but also straighter. Not much need for the outrageous recovery shots Woods delivered so many times after errant drives. But there's one point on which Chamblee is right: as a putter Koepka isn't a Woods or a Nicklaus. Just like Rory McIlroy, this is likely to limit his potential. Nevertheless, with four majors to his name by the age of 29 it currently looks like he could go on to reach the group of famous players in the top six of all time major winners, Tom Watson (8) and Gary Player and Ben Hogan (9). After all, it took Woods 21 attempts to win four majors, it's taken Koepka just one more, 22. But then we thought McIlroy would carry on accruing majors just a few years ago. As for rivaling Nicklaus and Woods by getting into the teens, that looks a long way off for any current players and I would wager just won't happen.
Koepka seems a bit more modest than Faldo. Martin Samuel reported that during last year's USPGA, Koepka was working out in his hotel gym while leading the tournament. He got talking with some of the other guests using the weights and cardio machines. You should have been here earlier, they told him overawed. Dustin Johnson, DJ himself, was here. Man it was a blast. And you just missed him. Five minutes earlier and you'd have seen him. Koepka smiled, without revealing his identity, that he had won the last two US Opens or that he was leading Johnson in the PGA by five shots with 18 holes to go, on his way to being only the fifth golfer to win the US Open and the US PGA in the same year. Putting him with Sarazen, Hogan, Nicklaus and Woods.
Koepka doesn't have the face or name recognition of some of his peers. Indeed, some seem to think he is boring. He may not be flamboyant but he's currently the best golfer in the world, by some margin.
So while I don't think it's likely Koepka will win even half Nicklaus's tally of majors in his career, it looks right now as if he'll outperform his immediate peers: Rory McIlroy (age 30, 4 major wins) and Jordan Spieth (age 25, 3 major wins, possibly getting into form again after a rough spell). With the Open next up, a home game for Rory McIlroy in Northern Ireland, it will be interesting to see how these young guns perform. But it would be a surprise to me if either of them won more majors than Koepka by the time their careers are done.
King Kong's run probably hasn't ended yet.
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