Brooks Koepka tames Shinnecock Hills to win his second U.S. Open in a row

Brooks Koepka is the U.S. Open champion for the second consecutive year.

The 28-year-old beat Tommy Fleetwood, Dustin Johnson, and everyone else on Sunday at Shinnecock Hills. After entering the day in a four-way tie for the lead with Johnson, Tony Finau, and Daniel Berger, Koepka’s final-round 68 brought him to a championship-winning score of 281 for the week, one shot over par. Fleetwood was next at plus-2 when Koepka walked off, despite making a charge with a brilliant round of 63 on Sunday.

Koepka is the first back-to-back winner at this tournament since current 63-year-old FOX television analyst Curtis Strange did it in 1988 and ’89. Shinnecock Hills presented a different challenge to Koepka than Erin Hills did last year. Then, he had to win a shootout on a relatively easy course, where the field piled up birdies with abandon. His 16-under score there tied a U.S. Open record relative to par.

This year in the Hamptons, Koepka’s win was closer to a story of survival. On a course that a bunch of the world’s best players couldn’t figure out, he made few mistakes and separated himself on the weekend. The tournament felt over when Koepka, leading by a shot over an in-the-clubhouse Fleetwood, stuck his 124-yard approach shot at the par-4 15th hole four feet from the green. He flushed the easy birdie putt to go up two and didn’t look back.

Shinnecock Hills was far easier on Sunday than at any other time during the championship. The scoring average was a shade over 72 on the par-70 course, down from 75.3 on Saturday. After days of not being able to make birdies on one of the hardest tracks in the world, the USGA moistened the course and delivered some easier pin placements that allowed for easier scoring. Three players shot under-par rounds on Saturday, followed by 15 players doing it on Sunday. It was like the tournament was ending on a new course.

Sunday was a blast, like always. But the first thing many will remember about the 118th U.S. Open is what a complete (and in some ways beautiful) mess it was before the course got easier on the final day. A combination of the wind at Shinnecock, the speed of the greens, and previously difficult hole placements made it a hard place to play. As the tournament went on, more and more players complained about the setup, with Zach Johnson saying the USGA “lost” the course and erstwhile contender Ian Poulter dragging the USGA on Twitter.

Maybe the most memorable moment of the championship happened on Saturday, and it involved a player who was already 10 strokes over par and out of contention. Phil Mickelson has since admitted that his putt of his own moving ball at the 13th green was an attempt to game the rules and take a two-shot penalty rather than chase his putt down the front of one of this course’s many severe greens. The USGA didn’t disqualify him, correctly applying a rule that includes a loophole for players who do exactly what Mickelson did. The existence of that loophole is another matter. Here, it prevented one form of chaos (a Mickelson DQ) and created another (lots of people yelling about a Mickelson DQ that didn’t come).

The U.S. Open has its detractors. There are those who thought Mickelson was disrespecting the game when he played his moving putt on Saturday. A lot of golf’s pampered professionals didn’t think the course was fair to them and that too much of the championship came down to luck. The USGA’s chief executive, Mike Davis, acknowledged Saturday that the course at some points punished rather than rewarded good shots.

Maybe that bothered you. But at the end, the U.S. Open was about what it usually is: a brutal, dramatic test at a beautiful course. There have been far worse displays of golf.