U.S. Open: Brooks Koepka living for ‘the chaos’ as he chases goal of double-digit major wins

LOS ANGELES — Brooks Kopeka’s reputation is built largely around the major championships.

This week, even as the PGA Tour-LIV Golf partnership overshadows the U.S. Open once again, that’s all Koepka is focused on.

“I haven’t paid too much attention to it, honestly,” he said from Los Angeles Country Club on Tuesday morning. “I’ve been trying to prep for this week … There’s four weeks a year I really care about, and this is one of them, and I want to play well.”

Up until this point — and especially this spring — that strategy has worked out incredibly well.

He enters the U.S. Open this week on the heels of his win at the PGA Championship last month in New York, which marked his fifth career major championship victory. He blew a four-shot lead late to Jon Rahm at the Masters in April, but still finished in second at Augusta National.

Koepka is now just a win away from joining Phil Mickelson, Lee Trevino and Nick Faldo at six major titles. Only 14 golfers in history have won at least six.

That, however, isn’t the goal. It’s far from it.

“Double digits, that’s what I’m trying to get to,” Koepka said. “I don’t think that’s out of the question for me … I’m only 33, so I’ve definitely got quite a bit of time.”

Koepka: ‘I enjoy the chaos’

Unlike some of the others who have largely avoided the topic — Collin Morikawa started talking about his charity work at one point on Tuesday morning when he was asked directly — Koepka seems very calm when it comes to the PGA Tour-LIV Golf drama.

He learned of the new partnership while he was eating breakfast last week as Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced it on CNBC, and was just as surprised as everyone else. Even now, a full week after the announcement, Koepka knows very little of what the future holds both for him and the sport in general.

But instead of worrying about it, Koepka is thriving. This is the environment he loves.

“The more chaotic things get, the easier it gets for me,” Koepka said. “Everything starts to slow down and I am able to focus on whatever I need to focus on while everybody else is dealing with distractions, worried about other things … I enjoy the chaos.”

Part of that is because of how high he holds the four major championships above everything else. Now playing with LIV Golf, where they have a much lighter schedule, he’s able to put even more emphasis on them than he was before.

“I think one thing that was always kind of harped on me was you knew how many majors Jack [Nicklaus] has, " Koepka said. “You knew how many Tiger [Woods] has, you knew how many Arnold Palmer has, you knew how many Gary Player, [Tom] Watson, all these legends, but I never knew how many PGA Tour events or wins they had total. … That’s what you’re judged on. It’s major championships.

“You look at basketball, you’re judged on how many championships you’ve won, not how many games you’ve won.”

Koepka eyeing start of second run

The way Koepka has carried himself the last few months, there’s no reason to doubt he can be in contention yet again this week.

After a tough season last year that was riddled with injuries, terrible major championship performances and even coming close to considering retirement altogether, Koepka has completely bounced back.

Outside of the majors, Koepka won the LIV Golf event in Orlando and finished third in Singapore. He’s third in the standings in the Saudi Arabian-backed league headed into their tournament in Spain later this month. And, despite not being able to earn points outside of four events a year, Koepka is 13th in the Official World Golf Rankings this week, his best spot there since 2021.

But it was beating Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler at Oak Hill Country Club last month that validated everything for him. He’s officially back, which is why he’s holding that major championship win above the others.

“This last one for sure [means more],” he said. “They all mean something different, but this last one, for all the stuff I had to deal with, all the pain, the tears, all the stuff that went into it — like I said, there's probably five, seven people in this whole world that really know what I went through and that were there kind of every step of the way. I think they enjoyed it maybe even more than I did.”

Koepka will tee off alongside Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama starting on Thursday afternoon. He’s listed at +1,100 to win this week on BetMGM, even with McIlroy and behind only Scheffler and Rahm.

A second major championship win in as many months would be reminiscent of his dominant stretch in 2017 and 2018, where he picked up three and won back-to-back U.S. Opens. It would lift him even higher on the list of golf’s greats, and mark the beginning of what would be a tremendous second act of sorts for Koepka.

But even with all that’s going on, and knowing his goal of at least five more major wins before he’s done, Koepka isn’t changing a thing.

“I'm pretty sure I know what it takes to compete in majors,” he said. “I've won five of them and been second four times. And just over my track record how to prepare when you're here, how to prepare when you're home for it, I've got that, I guess, on lock.”

This week is the only thing that matters.