The final round of the 2018 PGA Championship was arguably one of the best Sunday’s at a Major Championship in the past decade. Brooks Koepka captured his second Major Championship of the season (2018 US Open at Shinnecock) and third of his career (with only one regular PGA TOUR victory), but the golf world had their eyes fixated on a charging Tiger Woods – more on Tiger in a bit. Koepka, paired with Adam Scott (love seeing Scotty back in contention again!) won the 100th PGA Championship in his 100th start at Bellerive Country Club by two strokes over Tiger by putting together rounds of 69-63-66-66 and finishing at 16-under-par. To see him take over over the past two months has been incredible, especially given his wrist injury earlier in the year that saw him miss The Masters – a partially torn tendon in his left wrist, a pain he described as “someone jabbing a knife in my wrist or hand.”
With this latest victory, Koepka joins some of golf’s greatest names in his achievements:
Koepka is the definition of the modern, new-age golfer. He is an athlete first, who just happened to choose the sport of golf as his profession. Through his press conferences, he even talked about benching 225-pounds 14 times on Sunday before the US Open and reaching weight up to 315-pounds. His strength is definitely one of his biggest assets, but he is also accurate with his driver and has great hands on the putting greens. He is probably underrated as a putter due to the ridiculous lengths of his drives!
All eyes on Sunday were on Tiger Woods though, who shot an amazing round of 64 to finish at 14-under-par – this was also his lowest final round in a Major Championship in his career. There were a lot of “what if’s” with Tiger this past week – What if he didn’t start the tournament 3-over in his first two holes? What if he hit more fairways on the front-9 on Sunday? What if a few more putts dropped for him throughout the week? Regardless, it’s going to be a fun Major Championship season in 2019 with venues at Augusta National (The Masters), Bethpage Black (PGA Championship), Pebble Beach (US Open) and Royal Portrush (The Open).
To see Tiger with legitimate chances to win the last two Major Championships of 2018 (T6 at The Open, 2nd at the PGA Championship) has definitely been inspiring and has really brought back some major excitement to the sport. To think of where he was one year ago, his personal life decisions, his repaired knee, multiple back surgeries and a fused back, his 2018 season has seriously been awe-inspiring. Hearing the “Tiger Roars” and seeing those fist pumps back on the golf course has been a lot of fun to watch this season. Although he didn’t win his 15th Major, it sure felt like he did – but winning isn’t everything to Tiger anymore. His kids will be starting school in a few weeks and for him these days, family and parenting take precedence over anything.
Source: PGA.com
