The Saudi circuit breaks another barrier with the Koepka PGA Championship – Spain’s News

Brooks koepka not a LIV circuit activist like Phil mickelson or our Sergio Garciawho are not satisfied with playing in exchange for shovelfuls of petrodollars but instead proclaim the benefits of golf sponsored by Saudi Arabia compared to the one they practiced, but their triumph last weekend at the New York Oak Hill Courseheadquarters of the PGA Championship, serves Greg Norman to justify his invention. The golfer from Florida, in fact, is the only player stamped with the Riyadh currency who continues to wear his usual clothing in the tournaments he plays outside the livAs the Augustan Masters in which he finished second.

But Norman, CEO of LIV, wants to take advantage of the first Grand Slam triumph of one of his turncoats to heighten the interest, very limited, that has so far aroused on the Arab circuit. At the moment, it is clear that some of the members of him -also Bryson DeChambeau, fourth at Course Oak Hill – remain competitive at the highest level. Koepka, however, is much more than that. To begin with, since the day before yesterday he is the twenty-first man to reach the not inconsiderable figure of five “majors” won, the same as Severiano Ballesteros. He won his third PGA championship in the state of New York, after those of 2018 and 2019, which must be added to the two US Opens that he won in 2017 and 2018.

Before the pandemic, in fact, Brooks koepka he was destined to become a hegemonic golfer. He topped the world ranking during 47 weeks non-consecutive and he was losing number one because his critics blamed him, perhaps rightly, that he only prepared the Grand Slam tournaments. This is certified, of course, by a record of nine titles with five wins in “majors” and four in regular tournaments. Golf purists, always aware of etiquette, also did not appreciate his rather surly character and his ugly habit of constantly spitting during matches, a consequence of his habit of chew tobaccoas John Wayne in cowboy movies.

The road to the top was strewn with obstacles for the young Brooks, however, as he had to kick the back roads of Asia, Europe and South Africa between 2012 and 2014 to accumulate the points that would allow him to reach the top. PGA Tour, of which he has been a permanent member since February 2015, when he won the Phoenix Open as a complete unknown. His first victory as a professional was in Spain, specifically in a tournament of the Challenge Tour (the second division of the European circuit) that was played in September 2013 at the La Graiera club in Calafell (Tarragona). Future winners of higher level tournaments played there that week, such as Adrian Otaegui or Alexander Levy, among others.

When he was at the peak of his art, August 2019, koepka suffered a serious patellar tendon injury from a slip during a tournament. What seemed, what was, nonsense became “torment” because the sprain reflected a hip injury that required surgery and the rehabilitation of this surgery, in turn, caused the dislocation of the patella. In fact, the few journalists who have access to his family environment – a very closed circle in which his brother is chasea minor professional player whom he has recruited for the LIV– assure that his decision to go with the saudis obeyed his doubts about whether he would be able to get back to his best condition. It is seen that yes.