Brooks Koepka watches his tee shot on the eighth hole Sunday during the final round of the Masters. Koepka tied for second place with Phil Mickelson, four strokes behind Jon Rahm. Mark Baker/Associated Press
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Brooks Koepka will no doubt hear the same murmured joke no matter where he goes in the coming days and weeks.
If only the Masters was 54 holes.
Like those tournaments on the Saudi-back LIV Golf circuit.
If that was the case, Koepka would’ve been wearing a green jacket on the 18th green at Augusta National, rather than making the dejected march from there to the locker room. He had a four-shot lead over Jon Rahm when they resumed the third round that had been halted by weather, and a two-shot lead when the round finished Sunday morning, before shooting 3-over 75 in his final round.
Rahm closed with a 69 to finish at 12 under. By the time Koepka missed a birdie putt on his 72nd hole, he was 8 under and tied for second with LIV Golf compatriot Phil Mickelson, whose finishing 65 sent him shooting up the leaderboard.
The previous three times Koepka had a 54-hole lead in a major, he went on to win.
“Obviously it’s super disappointing, right? Didn’t play good enough to win,” he said. “Hit some shots where I also didn’t feel like I got some good breaks. … Didn’t feel like I did too much wrong, but that’s how golf goes sometimes.”
Koepka opened with a near-flawless 65, then took advantage of a favorable tee time to shoot 67 while dodging storms that derailed most of the second round. Koepka hung tough when driving rain greeted players Saturday, and was still in front when Augusta National grew so waterlogged that the third round could not be continued.
Half of his lead was gone in the first 30 seconds of play Sunday.
Picking up where they left off on the seventh hole, Rahm made birdie and Koepka made bogey, and that two-shot swing set the tone for the rest of the day. Koepka maintained his lead for the rest of the third round, but the birdie binge that he’d been on the first couple of days dried up, and Rahm swept past him on the front nine of the final round.
“The way Jon played today was pretty impressive,” Koepka said.
At one point, Koepka went 22 straight holes Sunday without a birdie, dropping from 13 under to 7 under.
He finally made birdie at the 13th, but Rahm rammed in a birdie putt of his own. That allowed the Spaniard to maintain a three-shot lead with five holes to play and effectively ended Koepka’s hopes.
“It was just be patient, probably, until about 13, and then we had to be a little more aggressive,” Koepka said. “It is what it is. I tried. I gave it my all. I can go to sleep at night.”
Augusta National has turned into a vexing place for Koepka, who signed with LIV Golf for a reported $100 million and became the first to win twice in the league’s first 10 events with last week’s victory in Orlando, Florida.
Koepka missed the 2018 Masters because of a wrist injury. He came oh-so-close to winning the following year, finishing a shot behind Tiger Woods, who won his fifth title. When Koepka tried to play the 2021 tournament three weeks after surgery to repair a shattered knee cap, he missed the cut. He missed it again last year, saying later that he was so frustrated that he twice tried – and twice failed – to smash out the back window of his courtesy car.
JORDAN SPIETH made 21 birdies at this year’s Masters, including nine on Sunday while trying to keep pace with partner Phil Mickelson.
And it still wasn’t enough to win – or even to beat the 52-year-old Mickelson.
Spieth tied for fourth place at 7 under, five shots behind winner Jon Rahm.
Mickelson also tallied 21 birdies, making eight in the final round, including five in the last seven holes to finish at 8 under and surge past Spieth.
“I was trying to honestly just match Phil shot for shot coming in,” Spieth said.
Spieth said he made too many mental mistakes all week, saying “mental fatigue” led to 10 bogeys and two double bogeys.
“I played way too much golf coming into this,” Spieth said. “I mean, this is eight out of 10 weeks (playing golf). So I need to change my schedule up going forward to be a little sharper during (Masters) week.”
The 2015 Masters champion said he got “lazy” picking targets on some holes.
“I probably only had a target 50% of the shots this week, and I like to have them 100% of the time,” Spieth said. “I kind of was trying to remind myself, but there was a few swings Thursday and Friday where I could have really left a few out there.”
COLD PUTTER: Scottie Scheffler’s bid for a Masters repeat never materialized, thanks in large part to his struggles on the green.
After entering the week as the No. 1 player in the world and the odds-on favorite, Scheffler could never get any momentum going with his putter and was mostly a non-factor. He tied for 10th.
Scheffler had 128 putts for the tournament, which was 18 more than when he won the tournament last year by three strokes over Rory McIlroy. He was tied for the most putts of anyone in the field through the first three rounds.
“The first two days, I putted just awful,” Scheffler said. “It was one of those weird situations where my good ones weren’t going in and then my bad ones definitely weren’t going in.”
Scheffler grinned when he finally rolled in a 40-footer on No. 11 to briefly pull within four shots of the lead, but then he he double-bogeyed No. 12.
THEEGALA THRIVES: Sahith Theegala is known to many golf fans for his appearance in the Netflix documentary “Full Swing.”
He proved this week he has a good golf game, too.
The 25-year-old Masters rookie shot a final-round 67 to finish at 5 under. That put him in the top 12 and ties and ensured that Theegala will be invited back to Augusta National next year.
“I just wanted to put my best foot forward because I’ve been playing so well,” said Theegala, who has yet to win on the PGA Tour. “I just really wanted to make sure I felt like I got the most out of it. And I really did. I played really well.”
The highlight of Theegala’s final round came at the par-3 16th, where he overshot the green. That gave him a similar pitch to the one Tiger Woods made en route to winning the green jacket in 2005 and, naturally, Theegala knocked it in.
“You should have seen how many people said, ‘Do it for Tiger! Tiger chip-in! And all this stuff,’” Theegala said. “I can’t wait to watch the replay because I don’t know what I did. I don’t even know the angle the ball took. I was just blacked out when I hit the chip because I was just so happy to get it on the green.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.