Nick Dougherty looks back on a thrilling final day at the PGA Championship and assesses what went wrong for Brooks Koepka
Monday 10 August 2020 06:56, UK
We waited a long time for a major championship to come around again and we didn't know what it was going to be like, but the PGA of America have done a cracking job in showcasing what major golf can look like without fans.
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Major championship golf can still be celebrated around the world - with or without fans - and it certainly has been this week. The storylines have been brilliant, which bodes well for Winged Foot and the US Open next month when they'll be playing in a similar atmosphere.
I can't remember a more difficult major to call and when you looked at the leaderboard at the start of the final round there were a least 10 players, if not more, that had a genuine chance of victory. It could have gone one of so many different ways, which you don't always get in majors.
The noise of the fans not being there was missed but the drama has been every bit as good as we've had before, while the golf course played its part and was everything you hoped it would be.
Brooks Koepka just didn't have his game on the final day and the only reason that it was such a massive surprise is because he has seemed to always deliver in majors over recent years.
There are no guarantees in golf but he has almost been the guarantee for quite some time, although that wasn't the case in the final round and he didn't have his game from the get-go.
You can be as bullish as you want and as strong in the mind as you want, but if you've haven't got the shots then you're not going to get it around TPC Harding Park. The course was a cross between a traditional PGA Championship and US Open style, so you couldn't just wrestle it around there.
It's really easy with what Koepka has done in majors over the past few years to start drawing comparisons between him and Tiger Woods, but Woods was of course prolific for a much longer period of time.
You can take that run away from Koepka, but we're a bit surprised with how he faltered like he did because he was just a non-event on Sunday. One thing I would credit Koepka for is body language, because it would have been really easy for him to be hanging his head after falling out of contention.
I think deep down he really thought he was going to complete the three-peat and it hasn't happened, yet he continued to interact with Paul Casey - playing alongside him - throughout the final day and that says a lot about his character.
As much as he'll be hurting, because he would've have been desperate for three in a row, he has dealt with the disappointment really well. We certainly shouldn't start thinking that spell of Koepka contending in majors is over, because he's going to be in the mix again when we get to Winged Foot.
Form is with him after following a runner-up finish in Memphis at the WGC with a decent week here in San Francisco and the US Open is only just over a month away, at a golf course at that will suit the way he plays, so he's going to be there or thereabouts again and we can expect him to bounce back.
