Koepka survives mini meltdown to defend PGA Championship

FARMINGDALE, New York - Brooks Koepka took his place in PGA Championship history with a wire-to-wire victory - minus the style points.

In a raging wind that turned the immaculate Bethpage Black course into a beast, Koepka lost all but one shot of his record seven-shot lead on Sunday.

He also lost the Long Island crowd, which began chanting "DJ!" for Dustin Johnson as Koepka was on his way to a fourth straight bogey.

But the defending champion delivered key shots over the closing stretch as Johnson faded with two straight bogeys, and Koepka closed with a 4-over 74 for a two-shot victory to join Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of the PGA Championship since it went to stroke play in 1958.

Koepka said at the start of the week that majors are sometimes the easiest to win.

This one should have been - but it wasn't.

His 74 was the highest final round by a PGA champion since Vijay Singh won in a playoff in 2004.

"I'm just glad I don't have to play any more holes," Koepka said. "That was a stressful round. I'm glad to have this thing back in my hands."

Koepka appeared to wrap it up with a gap wedge from 156 yards to two feet on the 10th hole for a birdie, as Johnson made his first bogey of the round up ahead on the 11th.

That restored the lead to six shots, and the coronation was on.

And then it all changed in a New York minute.

Koepka missed three straight fairways and made three straight bogeys. He needed to make a 6-foot putt on No 11 to keep it from being worse.

The wind was so fickle that it died as he hit 7-iron to the par-3 14th that sailed over the green, leading to a fourth straight bogey.

Sensing a collapse, the crowd began chanting, "DJ! DJ! DJ!" as Koepka was playing the hole. Ahead of him, Johnson made birdie on the 15th - the toughest hole at Bethpage Black all week - and the lead was down to one.

That was as close as Johnson got.

His 5-iron pierced through a wind that gusted close to 25 mph, over the green and into a buried lie. He missed the 7-foot par putt, went long of the green on the par-3 17th for another bogey and had to settle for 69.

"I hit the shot I wanted to right at the flag," Johnson said of his 5-iron from 194 yards on the 16th. "I don't know how it flew 200 yards into the wind like that."

Johnson now has runner-up finishes in all four of the majors.

"I gave it a run," he said. "That's all you can ask for."

Koepka returned to No 1 in the world with a performance that defines his dominance in golf's biggest events.

He becomes the first player to hold back-to-back titles in two majors at the same time, having won a second straight US Open last summer 60 miles down the road at Shinnecock Hills.

What stakes his claim as one of the best of his generation was a third straight year winning a major. Only Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Peter Thomson and Ralph Guldahl have done that since the Masters began in 1934.

Koepka now has four majors in his last eight, a streak not seen since Woods won seven out of 11 when he captured the 2002 US Open at Bethpage Black.

The 29-year-old Floridian is an imposing figure, a power off the tee and out of the rough with no obvious weakness in his game and the kind of mental fortitude that majors require. He needed all of it over the final hour of this one.

Koepka doesn't know his resting heart rate, and he said on the eve of the final round that it probably was not much different on the first tee of a major than when he's chilling on his couch at home. But he could feel this one getting away from him. He could sense Johnson making a charge. And he could hear it.

"How could you not with the 'DJ' chants," Koepka said. "I heard everything."

Finally.

Woods won the Wanamaker Trophy in consecutive years twice, in 1999 and 2000, and again in 2006 and 2007.

Koepka was starting to draw comparisons with Woods for the way he obliterated the competition, much like Woods in his 12-shot victory in the 1997 Masters and 15-shot victory in the 2000 US Open.

Koepka tied the PGA Championship record by opening with a 63. He broke the major championship record for 36 holes at 128.

He set another PGA Championship record with his seven-shot lead. In the end, just having his name on the heaviest championship trophy in golf was all that mattered.

Associated Press