America’s Brooks Koepka won his first PGA Tour event following a dramatic final day’s play in the Phoenix Open in Arizona.
The 24 year old from Florida, who was voted the European Tour’s rookie of the year last season, took the step up to the world’s biggest golfing stage in his stride, winning by one shot from Hideki Matsuyama, Bubba Watson and Ryan Palmer.
The tournament, played in front of record crowds at TPC Scottsdale, looked like Martin Laird’s for the taking, after the Scotsman was tied for the lead with two holes to play, but a bogey on 17, and an even more costly double on the last, opened the door for Koepka.
And the winner of November’s Turkish Open walked through it in no uncertain fashion, holing a 50-foot eagle putt from off the green on the par-five 15th and then coolly paring his way home to take the first prize with a closing 66. Victory took Koepka from 32nd to 19th in the world rankings.
The other main talking point from the tournament was the dramatic early departure of Tiger Woods, who missed the cut by an embarrassing 12 shots after shooting rounds of 73 and 82, the latter of which was his worst ever round as a professional – eclipsing the 81 he shot in the first round of the Open at Muirfield in 2002, which was played during a storm.
Conditions weren’t nearly so bad in Arizona though, and Woods was made to look like a weekend hacker as he duffed a succession of chips, left shots short, or flew the green by yards as he racked up six bogeys, two double bogeys, a triple bogey in his second round.
“We all have days like this,” Woods said about his 10-over par effort. “Unfortunately mine was in a public setting. But we all have days like this and we take the good with the bad.”