GolfPlus- Dec19 Digital Edition (Dec 19) | Page 35

Brooks Koepka
patterns of speech and use of language, their pauses, their
beliefs. In a psychological sense, if not performance, he’s
the most like Tiger Woods of any player we’ve ever seen.”
Embracing failure
It wasn’t always that way of course. Unlike Woods, who
was a prodigy from early on, Koepka’s road to
superstardom began later in life and in far fl ung corners
of the globe on the European Tour’s Challenge Tour with
a circuitous route at best. Or as Harmon puts it, with a lot
of failure, noting the 15 times Koepka has fi nished second
or third around the world as opposed to the 14 times he
has been the last man standing, trophy in hand. Still,
there was plenty of evidence to suggest that if nothing else
the talent was at least there. All it took was fi nding its way.
The fi rst time his caddie Ricky Elliott met Koepka was
at the 2013 US PGA Championship at Oak Hill. Koepka,
playing on the European Tour’s Challenge circuit at the
time, got into the tournament through his world ranking,
but his regular caddie at the time wasn’t able to make it to
upstate New York.
Enter Elliott, whose own fortuitous connection to
Koepka is a compelling story in its own right. A former
Irish boys’ champion, he grew up playing alongside
Graeme McDowell at Portrush and had big dreams of his
own when he headed to the US to play golf at Toledo
University in Ohio. But while McDowell’s career soared,
‘Brooks has been trying
to learn the art of peaking
four times a year, as all
great golfers have done.
And he has figured it out’
Elliott’s sunk into the harsh and depressing hinterlands
of golf’s mini tours. When that didn’t work, he tried
teaching. But he missed the competitiveness that went
with playing. Only he wasn’t good enough.
Now enter McDowell, who pitched Elliott to Koepka’s
swing coach Claude Harmon III prior to the week at Oak
Hill. Elliott was aware of Koepka but not fully. Koepka
and Elliott spoke on the phone and the fi rst time they met
was on Oak Hill’s driving range.
“I was late,” Elliott recalls. “He was already hitting
balls and he was hitting these 5-irons way up there.
I thought, Wow, this guy is pretty good.”
It didn’t take long for Elliott to fi gure out that he’d
stumbled onto something special.
The two hit it off well but the week wasn’t an easy one.
To start, working together for the fi rst time in the
cauldron that is major championship golf presents its
own set of challenges, such as having no idea how far your
boss hits each club. For Elliott, it was also his fi rst time
looping in any major.
Koepka made the cut, opening 71-72 before another
GolfPlus
DECEMBER
2019
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