GolfPlus- Dec19 Digital Edition (Dec 19) | Page 40

packed house of nearly 100 when Woods was in.
Last but certainly not least have been the multiple verbal
sparring sessions with Chamblee. When the analyst
questioned his toughness, Koepka responded via Twitter
with a clown face.
All of those situations seemed to fuel Koepka. It’s hard
to argue the results.
But this year, he has been the one doing the talking,
taking on a more outspoken role by going after everything
from slow play and calling out Bryson DeChambeau, to
misbehaviour by other players, such as Sergio Garcia,
whom he called a “clown” for his damaging of multiple
greens and throwing a temper tantrum in the sand on his
way to getting disqualifi ed for that behaviour in Saudi
Arabia.
“It might come across as fl ippant and arrogant, but he’s
not saying anything Jack didn’t say,” Harmon explains.
“Hogan thought like that. The mental strength thing
that’s changed is he’s way more comfortable being who he
is. He doesn’t have to try to be something he’s not.”
The same methodology applies to the equipment he
uses, too. Golf history is littered with players who chased
big endorsement deals after having success, never quite
able to recapture what they once had, or at least having lost
it for a while.
In Koepka’s case, he’s mostly kept the same putter,
wedges, heads, shafts, etc, that got him to where he is. The
same is true of those around him. The inner sanctum is
small but tight - Cowen, Harmon, putting coach Jeff
Pierce, physical therapist Marc Wahl and agent Blake
Smith. Or, yet another comparison to Woods in his
heyday.
“Everything he does is to try to keep things simple,”
Harmon says. “We’re working on the same things today as
six or seven years ago. Everything is based off how he sets
up to the ball. When that gets off, he gets off. When it’s
good, everything is good.”
That includes perhaps his greatest asset of all, his mind.
Mentally, few if any have been better than Koepka in that
area, either. That much was evident not just in his efforts
across the majors but his takedown of McIlroy in
Memphis.
“You can’t teach somebody to think the way that
Brooks thinks,” says Graeme McDowell. “I wish
I could think that way - use negativity the way he’s able to
use it. He just drives himself to another level. Tiger was
very different to that. He didn’t seem to need negativity.
He could go to a different place mentally than the rest of
us could go, but Brooks gets himself there via the little
chips, via the negative comments he gets from people, and
he’s able to take himself to places that we’ve only seen
from guys like Tiger, really. It’s impressive.”
So, too, has been Koepka’s incredible rise, from
Challenge Tour player, to challenger of history. And at 29
he’s just getting started.
What has brought him to this point and will carry him
into the future? The same thing that pushed Woods
before him and all the greats of the game.
“He’s a guy that needs to be a great player,” says Cowen
of Koepka. “I know a million guys who want to be great.
It’s not want with him. It’s need.”
44
GolfPlus
DECEMBER
2019
It is no coincidence that Brooks
Koepka’s major improvements over
the past few seasons have coincided
with a tweak to his driver swing –
namely in his downswing path and
the way in which he releases the
clubhead at impact. “He’s much
more consistent now,” says Koepka’s
coach Claude Harmon III. “He’s a
way better driver of the ball now
than when I met him six years ago.
He always had a lot of power, of
course, but he used to hit a big draw
and couldn’t control it as well. Now
he hits more cuts off the tee.”
A tweak to his driver set-up (1)
has enabled Koepka to create that
desirable slight left-to-right shot
shape. “The key to any good tee
shot starts with the set-up,” says
Harmon. “Koepka’s ball position
sometimes creeps back in his stance
and it throws off his path, causing
him to get the club too far behind
him on the backswing and coming
into impact. Lining the ball up on the
heel of his left foot enables him to
rotate all the way through the shot.”
As is with the trend with many of
today’s longer hitters, like Jason
Day, Dustin Johnson and Rory
McIlroy, Koepka keeps the club out
in front of his body during the
takeaway, (2) backswing and
downswing, his right elbow
remaining high in the halfway back
position (4). “The clubface gets a
little shut (6), but that’s because he
doesn’t pull the club inside on the
way back. It’s all out in front of him,
all the time,” says Harmon.
The last thing Koepka tries to
achieve through impact is the
feeling of keeping the handle of the
club low at impact (8). “If the handle
gets too high, it is harder for him to
deliver the club down the target line
(9) and hit that trusty power cut.”