Uh oh: A fiery, fierce, ticked off Brooks Koepka is back at the U.S. Open

OAKMONT, Pa. — Don’t look now, but that fiery, fierce, ticked off, on-a-mission Brooks Koepka has arrived at the 125th U.S. Open.

You remember this version, right? He has five major titles. The brashness. The swagger. The testiness. That guy just shot two-under 68 at the U.S. Open on Thursday. He finished birdie-birdie to became just one of a handful of players to finish in red numbers, and he starts Friday two off the 18-hole lead held by J.J. Spaun and with only two players in front of him.

And, if you are perusing the first page of the leaderboard on Thursday night, it’s Koepka’s name that might be the most universally feared. Remember those days? It used to always be like that — Koepka the major killer coming for the weak yet again. And based on his play and press conference on Thursday here at Oakmont, that guy has returned.

First, let’s rewind to that famous pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage Black. Koepka explained why he believed majors are easier to win than normal PGA Tour events.

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“There’s 156 in the field, so you figure at least 80 of them I’m just going to beat,” he said. “From there, you figure about half of them won’t play well from there, so you’re down to about maybe 35. And then from 35, some of them, the pressure is going to get to them. It only leaves you with a few more, and you’ve just got to beat those guys.”

Spoiler: he won that week.

He was asked about that quote on Thursday, if he still thinks that way.

“I mean, I don’t talk about it, you guys talk about it,” he said.

“It was your quote, though,” the reporter said.

“It was,” Koepka said. “I said it once, and now everybody repeats it.”

He smirked, kinda. Now that’s the guy we remember!

That’s the version that angered Bryson DeChambeau during their feud, making some fans love him and others loathe him. He was cocky and blunt. He was also just confident. He piled up major titles and went about his business ready to stuff naysayers into lockers.

But that guy, that Koepka, hasn’t been around the last couple of years.

Koepka tied for second at the 2023 Masters and won the 2023 PGA Championship a month later. Since then, he hasn’t been much of a factor in the last eight majors, the events he lives for.

Last year, he finished between 26th and 45th at all four. This year he missed the cut in both the Masters and PGA Championship. It was just the second time he’s missed back-to-back major cuts in his career. The only other time it happened was in 2012-13, in his first two major starts of his career, which were separated by more than a year.

He admitted Thursday the last two missed cuts have haunted him.

“I would say from the first weekend in April until about last week, you didn’t want to be around me,” he said. “It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven’t been happy. It’s been very irritating. … I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me.”

On Thursday, Koepka played smart, boring, efficient U.S. Open golf, the exact kind of golf he knows how to execute better than most people out here. He birdied 4 and made bogeys on 10 and 14, but back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 launched him up the leaderboard.

“It’s nice to put a good round together,” Koepka said. “It’s been a while.”

It has been. Koepka hasn’t won on LIV this season, although he did win twice last year. But, as he’s said before, it’s the majors that really matter. And in these events he’s been MIA. He’s well aware of that, too.

Lately he said he got into some bad habits and swing positions, but he’s worked hard on it and spent significant time last week working with Pete Cowen (short game) and Jeff Pierce (putting).

He said Cowen and Pierce “were on me pretty good” last week. It happened again in an Oakmont bunker on Monday, when Koepka said Cowen “scolded” him once more. (Koepka joked that Justin Thomas, who was nearby, heard it all and brought it up later that night. “He was like, I was worried; your head was down,” Koepka said.)

Koepka said he wasn’t happy about the tough love, but he also said it might have been what he needed to hear at the time. Whatever was said apparently worked on Thursday.

“I don’t like having ‘yes’ people around me,” he said. “I just want somebody to tell me the truth, tell me what’s going on, what they see. If I start swaying from being Brooks Koepka, then I want someone to call me out on it.”

It’s early, but that Brooks Koepka has arrived at Oakmont.