Brooks Koepka's POY award testament to his perserverance

Brooks Koepka’s incredible 2018 season, coming back from a wrist injury to win both the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, ends with him winning the PGA Player of the Year Award.

In April, when the best golfers on the PGA Tour were preparing to tee off in the Masters, Brooks Koepka was instead 500 miles away at home in Florida.

Koepka, the reigning U.S. Open champion, missed the first four months of the 2018 PGA season recovering from a wrist injury. The fact he returned to play competitive golf at all this year is remarkable; that he came back to win two major championships is nothing short of miraculous.

His two major titles, including a repeat performance at the U.S. Open in June and a victory over Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship, led Koepka to be named the PGA Player of the Year on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old Koepka is perhaps the most physically imposing golfer on tour, a personification of the type of athletic players that are taking over the tour. That he could be brought down by a wrist injury tested his mental toughness and fortitude.

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He made his return to the PGA Tour at the Zurich Classic in late April, but the first real sign that he was back to form happened at the Players Championship when he shot 63 in the final round. Two weeks later he was runner-up at the Fort Worth Invitational, firing two rounds of 63. Going to Shinnecock Hills for the U.S. Open showing no lingering issues with the wrist, Koepka became the first player since Curtis Strange in 1989 to successfully defend the title.

It was in August, however, that Koepka faced his biggest test. Holding the PGA Championship lead on Sunday at Bellerive, with none other than Tiger Woods chasing him down by shooting 64, Koepka responded with his own 66 to set the tournament scoring record and win his third career major.

Koepka didn’t have the most victories on the PGA Tour this year; that distinction belonged to close friend Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Justin Thomas with three each. But his triumphs on golf’s biggest stages, after where he began the year, speak to his incredible accomplishment and make him deserving of the Player of the Year award.

His season came to an end embroiled in controversy, however. Koepka and Johnson are workout partners in Jupiter, Florida. At the Ryder Cup in Paris, they were paired together for the Saturday afternoon foursomes session. They lost the match, and the American team the trophy, but the real drama came afterwards.

Koepka and Johnson reportedly had a fight in the locker room after the tournament last Sunday. Captain Jim Furyk seemed to confirm some sort of altercation between the two took place, telling Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte on Monday, “Whatever altercation started, or what happened, it was very brief. It was very short. Neither one of them really took anything out of it.”

Koepka, meanwhile, continues to deny he fought with Johnson. “The Dustin thing is laughable. Nothing happened. I think people think something happened, but really there’s nothing there,” he told ESPN after receiving his award on Tuesday.

“If you want to make something of it, everybody seems to be making something of it, but there’s nothing there.”

Whatever happened in Paris doesn’t seem to have affected their friendship, with Johnson appearing alongside Koepka at the trophy ceremony on Tuesday.

The fight with Johnson aside, Koepka proved in 2018 that he’s no longer a player to be ignored when talking about the best in the world. At the start of the year, when he was watching the Masters from home in Florida, the success he would have seemed more like fantasy. He made it reality with the sheer force of his perseverance and power.

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Brooks Koepka’s POY award testament to his perserverance

By David Salituro | Oct 9, 2018

Brooks Koepka’s incredible 2018 season, coming back from a wrist injury to win both the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, ends with him winning the PGA Player of the Year Award.