Major disappointment leads to Major success for Brooks Koepka as he secures his fifth Major title at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill
Well, that's a Major Sunday we're not going to forget in a hurry! I am going to rename it the Brooks and Block show!
Let's start with the now five time Major Champion and three time PGA Champion Brooks Koepka. Gone were the errors from last month's Masters Championship and in stepped a more comfortable-looking Koepka, who knew what to do.
Twice the American led by four shots at Oak Hill and although the card wasn't blemish-free, he always looked in control of his destiny. He even afforded himself the odd smile as he shot a final round three-under-par 67 to top the leaderboard and win by two shots.
Viktor Hovland challenged and there was a run of birdies from Scottie Scheffler on the back nine, but neither could rattle the 33-year-old, and both had to settle for a tie for second at seven-under-par.
Koepka learnt something important at Augusta National, which he wasn't going to share but he did reference how failure had helped him:
"I think failure is how you learn. You get better from it. You realize what mistakes you've made. Each time I've kind of made an adjustment. It's more mentality than it is anything. It's not really golf swing or anything like that. You're going to play how you play, but mentally you can kind of figure things out, and I'm always trying to get better. Just trying to find that different little edge just to poke and try inside my head.
"Really, I think the big key is just being open and honest with yourself, and if you can do that, you'll be miles ahead of everybody else."
After time out due to injury and move to LIV Golf, was this Major the best one yet?
"Yeah, this is probably the sweetest one of them all because all the hard work that went into this one, this one is definitely special. This one is probably it for me."
New kid on the Block
It was disappointing to see the general lack of TV coverage of Michael Block, considering the amount of interest there was around the 46-year-old PGA Professional. But Block, who admitted afterwards that the final day was more of a struggle, wasn't done yet with grabbing the headlines.
"It wasn't nearing as much fun today. I got some really bad lies starting on hole one. The lie I had on one was ridiculous, and I make a bogey. No putts dropped in. I was rolling it the same, but as everyone knows that's a golfer, right, today they weren't breaking and dropping in the hole."
Block was two-over for his round when he took to the 15th tee, what happened next would normally only happen in your dreams!
Here's what happened in his own words:
"Rory hits. He misses the green right. I'm just like, oh, yeah, you can't go there; right? So I'm over my tee shot, and the crowd goes crazy. Like, the crowd went nuts and I had not even hit yet. So I had to step back. I'm, like, this is pretty cool; right? This huge reception, and I haven't seen hit.
"So I sit back for a second. I'm, like, this is cool, but I've got this nice flight at 7. I could hit a hard 8, but all day long when I tried to hit anything hard, I was pulling it. So I was, like, I'm going to flight a little 7 in there into the breeze from 150. It was playing about 167 in my head.
"So I hit it, and it's just right at it, but I can't say it, just like now, and all of the you sudden it disappears, whatever. I'm like, cool. I'm like, thanks, guys. Rory is walking down the pathway 20 yards away from me and turns around and starts walking back towards me with his arms open to give me a hug. And he goes, you made it.
"I go, what? I'm like, seriously?
"He's like, yeah, you did. He had to tell me five times that I made it. So it was a pretty cool experience to have Rory be telling me that I made a hole-in-one in front of God knows how many people that were supporting me."
With an invite to this week's Charles Schwab Challenge and future playing opportunities, this is far from the last time we'll be seeing Michael Block.
That's the second men's Major in the books for 2023 and what an unexpected cracker of a Major it was. Brooks and Block - two of the coolest guys in golf right now - that's a pretty good Netflix title don't you think?!