P.G.A. Championship: Brooks Koepka evaporates lead but lingers

That has left golf, which Koepka learned on the public lanes of West Palm Beach, Fla. He did not distinguish himself on the national stage as a junior player and was recruited lightly from high school. Koepka ended up at the Florida State, where he became a triple all-American selection but only won a college tournament until his final year.

After college, he improved his race on the circuit of the minor league in Europe, the Challenge Tour, winning four times with a total of 23 strokes.

Koepka is not someone who needs to think about a shot; if he got his way, golf would be an anaerobic sport. And he doesn't rely on a sports psychologist to stay healthy. He does not have to, because he is not someone who lets his score, good or bad, dictate his self-worth.

"If I had been in a boycott," Koepka said, referring to the back nine, "I would still have looked at it as if I was trying the hardest. Sometimes that's all you have." "

Graeme McDowell, the 2010 United States Open champion, said," You can't teach someone to think like Brooks Koepka thinks. I wish I could think that way. "

Most players can better relate to Jordan Spieth, who spoke earlier this year about leaving his bad rounds in his life off the track, or Rory McIlroy, who has an impressive library of books that spread the perspective he formulated after winning of the Players Championship in March: "I am not my score; I am not my result." With this victory, Koepka Spieth, 25, who has three major titles but none since 2017, and equal to the main title total of McIlroy, who his fourth won during d he British Open in 2014

"He clearly finds himself in these minds in the majors, and he really goes and comes in a different kind of state," McIlroy said of Koepka, who is two PGA Tour titles outside the majors has.