PGA Championship analysis: What to know about Brooks Koepka’s win

After a waterlogged Saturday at Oak Hill, Sunday brought clear skies and easier scoring opportunities for the chasing pack. But the 54-hole leader and best major championship player of his generation was unrelenting, carding three birdies in his first four holes. Brooks Koepka never looked back, and by early Sunday evening was lifting the Wanamaker Trophy for a third time.

Here are the top numbers and notes to know from the final round of the 105th PGA Championship.

1. Koepka’s place in golf’s history books grows deeper roots with each passing major championship season. Koepka is just the third player to win three or more PGA Championships in the stroke play era, joining Jack Nicklaus (five wins) and Tiger Woods (four). He’s the third player to win the PGA Championship three times in a six-year span, joining Nicklaus and Walter Hagen. He’s also one of just five players in history to win the PGA three or more times and the U.S. Open more than once. The others are Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Nicklaus and Woods.

Only seven players since 1950 have won five or more men’s majors before age 34: Woods, Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Koepka. Koepka (born in 1990) is the first player born after 1975 to win five men’s major championships. For more than 22 years, Woods was the youngest man on Earth with five or more major wins — now that title goes to Koepka. He is just the 20th player in men’s professional golf history to win five majors.

2. Koepka needed every club in his bag to beat the field at Oak Hill. Thankfully for him, he did just about everything brilliantly. Off the tee, Koepka ranked fifth in distance and sixth in fairways hit. He landed in the top five in strokes gained approach per round for the week, picking up nearly six full shots on the field in that department. He scrambled at the fourth-best clip in the field (68%) and had fewer putts per round than any other player (26.0).

Koepka played the back nine at Oak Hill in nine-under for the week, two strokes better than anybody else. It all added up to 66, 66 and 67 scores in the last three rounds. In the history of men’s major championship golf, there have only been four victories where a player shot 67 or lower in rounds 2, 3 and 4. Koepka has two of them — this week and at the 2018 PGA. The other two belong to Nick Price (1994 Open) and Jason Day (2015 PGA).

I Got 5 on It 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/IqAI0jx7yk

— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) May 22, 2023

3. Koepka finished tied for second last month at the Masters Tournament, just as he did in 2019 before winning the PGA at Bethpage Black the following month. Since the first Masters in 1934, there are only five instances of a player finishing runner-up at the first major of the season, then winning the second. Koepka has two of them — the 2019 and 2023 PGAs — the other three instances are in 1938 (Ralph Guldahl), 1965 (Player) and 2008 (Woods).

There have been 24 men’s majors contested since the 2017 U.S. Open. Koepka has finished first or second in nine of them — nearly 40 percent of the time. To put that in perspective, since 1990, only three players have 10 or more top-two finishes in majors: Tiger Woods (22), Phil Mickelson (18) and Ernie Els (10).

With three major championship wins in New York, Koepka is the only player in men’s golf history to win three majors on three different courses in the same state. Before Koepka, nobody had even won two majors in New York since Gene Sarazen at the 1932 PGA. Koepka is now a preposterous 79-under-par in major championships since the beginning of 2017 — 27 strokes better than any other player in that span (Scottie Scheffler, -52).

4. Koepka may have driven away with the Wanamaker Trophy, but the 105th PGA truly had two different champions. Michael Block put an incredible back-nine exclamation point on the most memorable club professional performance in decades. At the 15th, Block made the only hole-in-one of the week, dunking it from 151 yards away. Block is the first club professional to make an ace at the PGA Championship since George Bowman in 1996. In the celebration, playing partner Rory McIlroy hugged the real-life Roy McAvoy.

When he got to 18, Block needed a par to secure a top-15 finish and automatic qualifying for next year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla. After spraying his approach left into the gallery, Block hit an incredible greenside recovery shot to just inside eight feet. He drilled the par putt, completing one of the most inexplicable performances in sports this year.

5. This week, Block had the best 36- and 54-hole positions by a club pro at the PGA Championship since 1988. His tie for 15th place is the best finish by a club pro since Lonnie Nielsen finished tied for 11th at Inverness in 1986. Block finished sixth in the field for the week in strokes gained putting, seven spots ahead of Koepka. He beat world number one Jon Rahm by six and defending champ Justin Thomas by 11.

As the week progressed, it was learned that Block usually charges $125 per lesson at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, a public course in California. If that’s still his going rate — and it shouldn’t be after this week — it would take 2,307 lessons to equal what Block is taking home in official earnings this week: $288,333. Block likely won’t be giving any lessons next week, though. After his round, he received a sponsor’s exemption into next week’s PGA Tour stop at Colonial.

6. After carding a 40 on the front nine Saturday, Scottie Scheffler knew he had to go seriously low to have a chance at victory. He made a valiant effort — his closing 65 was his lowest-ever final-round score in a major — but it just wasn’t enough to catch Koepka. This is Scheffler’s second runner-up finish in the last four majors contested — he also finished T-2 at Brookline last summer. The finish moves Scheffler back to number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, a metric of dwindling significance in the new split-tour era.

Scheffler entered the week leading the PGA Tour in strokes gained tee-to-green. He led the field in that statistic again this week, cementing his status as the best ball striker in the world currently in the men’s game. Scheffler will be in the field next week at Colonial, looking to avenge last season’s playoff defeat to Sam Burns.

7. One day after Corey Conners hit his approach directly into the lip of a fairway bunker at the 16th hole, Viktor Hovland did the exact same thing, effectively ending his chance at a victory. Overall, though, Hovland assembled another terrific week: he’s the only player to finish seventh or better in each of the last three majors contested. Through his first nine major championships as a pro, Hovland was a combined 20-over-par with no top-10 finishes. He’s now 27-under in his last three.

Hovland led the field this week in both strokes gained approach and average proximity to the hole, a cruel statistical twist considering the most impactful shot of his final round was from a fairway bunker.

8. McIlroy carded a 1-under 69 for the third consecutive day to finish in a tie for seventh place. It’s the 18th top-10 finish in a major for McIlroy since his last victory, most of any player in that span.

McIlroy had solid numbers across the board but was never able to kick it into high gear for a sustained stretch. He made back-to-back birdies just twice all week, once on Thursday and once Saturday. McIlroy made 16 birdies for the week — only five players made more — but followed them up with a bogey four times. He ranked fourth in the field in strokes gained approach, but when he did miss the green he got up and down just 50 percent of the time (which was still better than the field average of 46 percent).

Next month’s U.S. Open will be the 34th major played since McIlroy’s last win.

9. Bryson DeChambeau finished in a tie for fourth, his second top-10 finish in the last three majors (T-8 at the Open last summer). Bryson’s approach play wasn’t nearly as sharp Sunday as in the first three rounds — he ranked 62nd of 76 players in the field in average proximity to the hole. He proved this week that even with a leaner physique, his driver is still an incredible weapon, leading the PGA Championship in strokes gained off the tee.

A pair of relative long-shots rocketed up the leaderboard Sunday to finish in a tie for fourth with DeChambeau. Both Cam Davis and Kurt Kitayama shot Sunday 65s, giving each their best career finish in a major. While Kitayama was a certainty to get into the U.S. Open Monday thanks to his world ranking, Davis needed a big week to have the same fate. The Aussie’s tie for fourth vaulted him from 68th to 49th in the world, getting him into the top-60 before Monday’s qualifier cutoff.

10. Los Angeles Country Club is the host of next month’s U.S. Open, the first time the L.A. area has held the championship in 75 years. Reigning Masters champion Rahm will undoubtedly be one of the favorites, having won half of his 10 PGA Tour titles to date in California. Local favorite Max Homa will be another popular name — Homa shot a course record 61 at Los Angeles CC when the 2013 Pac-12 Championships were contested there. Koepka’s win snapped a modern-era record streak of seven straight men’s major winners in their 20s.

The U.S. Open begins in 25 days.

(Top photo: Warren Little / Getty Images)