Rob Lee
Golf columnist
Brooks Koepka was 'in panic mode' during PGA Championship victory
Last Updated: 20/05/19 8:47am
Rob Lee reviews a dramatic final day at the PGA Championship and reflects on Brooks Koepka's successful title defence.
What we saw was Bethpage Black play as the fearsome course we all thought we were going to find at the start of the week. There were under par scores available but with a bit of a breeze across the golf course, it proved to be so tough.
It was an unbelievable week for golf and a fantastic win for Brooks Koepka, but he had to dig really deep at the end. Koepka had to tell himself that it was a tough day and he was going to drop shots as other people would make mistakes.
Koepka really had to gather his thoughts and after Dustin Johnson started to come at him and when he blew his shot over the 14th green to drop a shot, it started to get a little bit tricky for him.
It really could have gone either way when Johnson birdied the 15th to take it within a shot, but you won't win major championships by dropping two shots over his last three holes when chasing.
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Koepka had the ability to think very well, when he was under the most pressure in the last few holes, which proved that he was up to the test and mentally tougher than everyone else around him.
Closing out nicely to secure victory was massive for him today. If he had let that go and seen Johnson go past him, that would have almost been a Jean van de Velde moment in his career.
Koepka looks cool and wanders around the golf course like he's just taking a stroll, but he was in panic mode during that back nine and would have started to think about throwing away that lead.
He knew that being the guy that lost a seven-shot lead in a major would have been like an anchor around his neck for the rest of his life, although all people will remember from this is a fourth major victory in eight major championships.
Johnson was impressive for large parts of the final round but he will be kicking himself because when he made that birdie at 15, he knows that if he pars the final three holes he has a great chance of winning. Today was a real opportunity and he didn't take it.
Even though Dustin Johnson is a fantastic player, there are real question marks about how he finishes. I'm not saying it was easy because the course was difficult, but winning majors is difficult.
