One man’s pleasure is another man’s pain. That was certainly true for Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka as they were swallowed by the masses on the 18th hole today at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, where the throng of fans tried to get as close as possible to Mickelson as the 50-year-old secured his improbable, rousing and historic victory at the 103rd PGA Championship.
But Koepka found little jubilation in the swarm that enveloped the duo; rather the walk through it was a painful trudge.
“Yeah it would have been cool if I didn’t have a knee injury and got dinged a few times in the knee in that crowd because no one really gave a sh-t, personally,” he said. “But if I was fine, yeah, it would have been cool. Yeah, it’s cool for Phil. But getting dinged a few times isn’t exactly my idea of fun.
“[I was] trying to protect my knee. I don’t think anybody really understands until you actually you’re coming out of surgery how – even when I was doing rehab and there’s five people kind of standing by your knee, you get a little skittish.”
Koepka added that his caddie, Ricky Elliott, got “drilled in the face” as he tried to work his way through the crowd. Then Koepka said he got dinged by the bag because Elliott at one point had to stop quickly and unexpectedly. As for the knee? “It feels like sh-t right now,” Koepka said.
Perhaps just as painful was the outcome.
One back at the start of the day, Koepka quickly grabbed the lead with a birdie to Mickelson’s bogey on the opening hole. But a few minutes later, Koepka found himself in trouble off the tee on the par-5 second, was forced to lay up, airmailed the green with his third then duffed his fourth. A double-bogey later, and the lead was again Mickelson’s. Back and forth they went in an exhilarating front nine before Mickelson seized the lead for good with a birdie on the seventh.
While Mickelson accelerated, though, Koepka stumbled.
Seeking a third Wanamaker Trophy in the past four years, Koepka, who underwent surgery in March after he dislocated his kneecap and sustained ligament damage, hit just half his fairways, struggled mightily with his putting and made three bogeys in a four-hole stretch to open his back nine. That included one on the par-5 11th, where his second shot came up well short in a sandy area and his third also failed to reach the green. Then he missed a five-footer for par.
“Just how bad I putted the last two days,” said Koepka when asked what was hardest to stomach. “Three days, actually. It felt like tap-ins I was missing. Never felt comfortable, and you’re not going to win if you do that.”
He also said his surgically repaired knee was not an issue in the final round and that he was able to push off it all week.
Still, he will now have time to rest it. The year’s next Major, the US Open at Torrey Pines, is a month away and it’s unclear whether Koepka will play before then.
“Yeah, [I’ll] take some time off, relax a little bit and start practicing again,” he said. “Keep doing rehab. Keep doing everything I’m doing and hopefully come out and play well.”
