Think of all the hoopla whenever anyone wins a pair of majors in a season; Jordan Spieth in 2015, Rory McIlroy the year before, Padraig Harrington in 2008 and Tiger before that in 2005. You can’t move for plaudits and accolades.
Then there’s Brooks Koepka who defended his US Open title at Shinnecock Hills, after Tommy Fleetwood’s heroics, before beating Tiger by two at Bellerive. Three wins in his last six majors but still we’re not raving about the muscular, and magnificent, Floridian.
I’m not sure it’s that well known a fact that Pete Cowen looks after his short game. The legendary Sheffield coach, thanks to Koepka’s brilliance at the PGA, completed his career Grand Slam. So who better to give us an insight into the 28-year-old’s mindset and game as he looks to sign off a spectacular season by capturing the FedEx Cup?
How Koepka can win the FedEx Cup
Wins the Tour Championship AND
– DeChambeau finishes in a three-way tie for 2nd or worse
– Rose finishes T2 or worse
– Can finish 2nd and still have a mathematical chance of winning
Has Brooks got a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the lack of adulation or does it not concern him?
I think anybody would always care but you can tell it rankles him a little bit. He looked at the odds for the PGA Championship and he said ‘how’s he in front of me?’
He said on the flight up from the Bridgestone, where he played unbelievably well from tee to green and putted poorly but he still finished fifth, ‘they’re going to have to play really well to beat me this week the way I’m playing’.
I’ve also seen a change in him. He used to not sign many autographs but he’s changed that and he signs an awful lot now. I said to him it’s karma, you’re getting back what you’re giving.
Maybe you need to do a little bit more of that and let people embrace you and see what sort of guy you are rather than you’re trying to be so aloof. They all try and be like Tiger Woods used to be in the early 2000s, separating themselves from the pack.
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People have almost forgotten about Brooks’ wrist injury slightly – how serious was it?
He had an operation and he was in a cast for almost a month. The only thing he could do was gym work and obviously that’s strengthened him an awful lot in the rest of the body. And then at Sawgrass he had another reoccurrence of it on the range when a buggy driver drove straight in front of him when he was just about to hit his long iron and he stopped so quickly that the wrist popped a little bit.
Me and his caddie, Ricky, just said get on with it, it’s only a bit of pain and luckily, he did. But he was thinking that it might be badly injured again, but it wasn’t, he was alright.
How good is his driving?
Brooks’ driving is phenomenal. He and Dustin, when they’re on song, make the course look so much easier and when your drive is as long and good as that, it will win you tournaments. When Justin Thomas drives he looks flat out, but when Dustin and Brooks do it, it looks like they have another gear to go up. They’re in a slightly different league.
Justin Rose can obviously compete with them because he’s putting well, it’s all set up for a great finale and I’m also looking forward to what they’re doing in Paris, which is a strategic course. I’d like to know how Phil Mickelson is going to stand on that 3rd tee and find the fairway. It will be an interesting one.
What have been the significant moments in his winning majors?
In 2017 I was at FedEx St. Jude Classic the week before Erin Hills and I walked all four rounds with Brooks and I watched his body language, he was asking the question why he keeps finishing second, why he can’t win.
I wasn’t impressed with his body language over the four days so on the Tuesday of Erin Hills I sat him down with Ricky and told him that with that attitude he wasn’t going to do anything. With an attitude of ‘why me?’ and ‘why am I here?’, you’re never going to win anything.
I challenged him to change his attitude and show the attitude of a champion and on the flight back he said ‘thanks for the bollocking!’
To be off for four months and come back and win two out of three majors is very impressive and shows you how good he is. Everybody is fearful but it’s important to not let your fear turn into panic, the great players are able to control their fear.
It always surprises you when someone wins two in a year. We were used to it in the Tiger Woods era but it doesn’t happen that often these days. It is pretty impressive really.
How would you rate Brooks’ short game now compared to five years ago when you started working together?
We have a joke about it, I would have said at the start he was a 1/10 and now he’s 3/10 so he’s got a 200 per cent improvement. So that’s pretty good going.
What are the bad bits still?
He probably plays the wrong shot at the wrong time and that’s all I would say. What we say over a shot is really if your life depended on it what shot would you hit, so he’s got to start choosing the right shot at the right time.
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I see with players, when they become great chippers and good bunker players, they actually take a shot on they shouldn’t be taking on – chippers chip when they should putt and I’ve seen that an awful lot.
So great chippers tend to get forced into chipping when, really, they should hit the much simpler shots. So we try and take the road to success in that if your life depended on it what would you actually do? We did that at Pinehurst.
Turn the page to find out why Pete will never work on Brooks’ putting…
On the last hole at the US Open he faced a horrible chip shot over sand, was that the right shot?
Yes, it definitely was because of the slope on the green. A lot of people said why didn’t he putt it but he knew he couldn’t get it close. He could putt it but it stood a chance of going 20 feet away so when he chipped it on the high side and it just rolled round, he knew he’d get it within certainly six or seven feet. But his bunker play has improved the most.
Are you in charge of the putting as well?
I don’t do putting. I think putting should be a quarter of a shot. I’m in the Hogan camp, Hogan used to say putting should be half a stroke. I would say it’s a quarter of a stroke but that’s my own belief in any case. It shouldn’t count the same as hitting the 2-iron 260 yards over water and stopping it within six foot of the flag. Has it got the same tariff? No, it hasn’t.
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How does it work with Claude Harmon, at what part do you step in?
Somebody on Twitter was quite funny, they said I hope he handles Brooks’ short game, which is anything under 350 yards. Claude helps an awful lot just to keep him on the straight and narrow, he does his basics really, mixed with the fact that he’s watching everything. If Claude’s not there, I’ll have a look and make sure he’s alright. It works alright. Obviously when you’ve got a winning team, you don’t spoil it.
What was he like when you first met him in 2014?
There’s quite an interesting story about that. Ricky introduced me to him when we were at Wentworth and he was asking me about short game and he said ‘well, if you’re that good, you show me.’ I holed the first two bunker shots and he started to listen.
We went to a pub near Ascot for a meal that night, to get introduced to each other and Brooks arrived in a nice restaurant with his baseball hat on back to front and I thought ‘no, no, I can’t have that’.
We’re sat at the table and a really attractive girl turns up. Brooks went to the loo and when he came back I said to him, ‘Brooks you know that really attractive girl who’s over there’ he said ‘yeah’. ‘She’s just asked who the twat with the hat is’ and of course all the players on the next table behind him were laughing.
So, he doesn’t come for a meal with a baseball cap on back to front anymore and that was the start of our relationship. He’s a great guy to work with and I really like him. It’s a pleasure to work with him and see the confidence he’s got.
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Have you known other players who have turned around to you en route to a major and said the opposition are going to have to play well to beat me?
No is the simple answer. Most people are very protective of the quality of their play. They always like to say ‘well I’m not far away’, it’s always a cliché. They know they’re playing well but they’re frightened of saying they’re playing well just in case they don’t do as well as they should. You listen to them all the time when they’re being interviewed, ‘it’s not far away, it’s close’.
Is that arrogance or confidence?
Confidence. Pure confidence. Absolutely. Like anybody in any job, if you’re brilliant at your job, you’ll always have confidence when you go out and do your job and do your job really well if you’re brilliant at it. That’s just total confidence in their ability.
Is it unique to him that he’s prepared to say it so openly to you though?
Yes, but I’m sure he would’ve said it to anybody at that particular time because when I watched him play at the Bridgestone, he was playing unbelievably well tee to green. It was like Henrik Stenson when he won The Open, he just had that confidence about him that he was going to do it.
Henrik had that all week at Troon, he just knew. He said it was his time and he knew he was going to win it so without telling everybody that he was going to win, he just had that inner confidence.
Whereas Brooks will say, certainly to me, ‘yep I’m playing great’ but he’ll also tell you when he’s playing badly as well.
Does he see himself as the best golfer in the world going into these big events?
Yes. Simple as that, yes. I don’t think there’s any other way to think. Once he gets to No. 1, I think he’ll create the distance that Dustin created ahead of everybody else. They’ll find it difficult to stay with him.
Is he a more technical player than we might think?
Yes, with the bunker play he had to understand the technique and with his chipping he had to get his technique a lot better. A lot of people say that good chippers are feel players but if you’ve got a poor technique you’re going to struggle. If you practise good technique you get better.
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Watch The Tour Championship exclusively live on Sky Sports Golf and see who takes home the PGA Tour’s ultimate prize during the FedExCup Play-offs @PGATour