Brooks Koepka heads to Pebble Beach looking to Three-Peat

Brooks Koepka will tee off Thursday looking to join an extremely rarefied group of golfers. Those who have won the same major three times in a row.

Regardless of how much you know about golf, it isn’t likely that you would have known who won the same major three times in a row. Maybe you could’ve gotten lucky by just guessing a famous person. You would need to be deep in the knowledge of golf to guess one, and a little crazy to know them all. Brooks Koepka is looking to join that group.

If you want to look at all the times throughout major history that it has happened, for three of the five times, you need to go way… way… way… back. Like Chris Berman far back.

The streaks that have happened at the Open were all before 1900. Young Tom Morris from 1868-72 (there was no event in 1871), Then Jamie Anderson won three straight, followed up right away by Bob Ferguson winning the next three, in 1877-1879, and 1880-1882.

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You would need to go back to the 1920’s to see the the last time it happened in any other major. Walter Hagen actually won four straight from 1924-1927. Although back then, they were match play instead of stroke play. Still an incredible accomplishment, but albeit not the same.

The most recent time that it has happened? Over 60 years ago. Back in 1954-1956, Austrailian Peter Thomson won the U.S. Open three times in a row. Not only that, he finished second in 1957, and then won it again in 1958, nearly winning it five years in a row!

There have been a handful of people to defend a major win the next year, from Tiger Woods to Padraig Harrington, among others.

All of these means that Brooks Koepka has his work cut out for him. It isn’t an occurrence that happens often. He is going to need to play fantastic golf once again, and have things fall his way.

Then again, he is the kind of guy who would be the one to do it. Look at his wins on the PGA Tour. Notice a trend?

2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open
2017 U.S. Open
2018 U.S. Open, PGA Championship
2019 THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, PGA Championship

Only two of those are regular events. Four of them are majors. Brooks Koepka brings his A game to majors, and the difference between the two is greater than any other golfer. As he showed in his walk-up during the last major, not even a model (his girlfriend) could distract him.

Brooks knows what is on the line. The fact that he could have something on any other golfer in the last 60 years would be a huge accomplishment. Not Arnie. Not Jack. Not Phil. Not DJ. Not Rory. Not Tiger. None of them won the same major three times in a row. Koepka has that opportunity.

One thing to remember. He is going for three in a row, but he already has two of them. The odds aren’t stacked against him, as he just needs to win one more.

There is going to be plenty of excitement this week. Phil and Tiger love Pebble Beach. It’s an insanely iconic course. It’s the U.S. Open, which is always tough. There have been plenty of “lush” videos out there showing how difficult the course is going to be if you get in the rough. Here’s a great one with Patrick Cantlay.

There are only 19 golfers in history who have won five or more majors. Koepka is looking to become number 20, and crazily enough, would be tied with Phil with five major wins. Pebble Beach is going to annihilate and crush souls this week. To outlast it, Koepka will need to play like he did at Bethpage Black.

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Whoever wins is going to need to play a fantastic four rounds of golf. Or, you could just annihilate the competition like Brooks Koepka did at the PGA Championship, setting the scoring record through 36 holes. That’s always an option too.

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