Jordan Spieth Or Brooks Koepka, Who’s the best 90’s kid?

Last week GolfTV released their “Best Player Born in the 1990’s” list. The list is full of the best young players in the game with little debate anywhere on the list, except the top. GolfTv listed their number one player born in the 90’s as Brooks Koepka, beating out Jordan Spieth, who is listed as second.

Yes, Jordan has had a few rough years, and in those years, Brooks surged to the top, but the question has to be asked, up to this point in their careers, has Brooks Koepka had a better career than Jordan Spieth?

The logical first place to start is the win totals for both players. I quickly found a crazy coincidence when looking into the stats, both Jordan and Brooks turned pro in 2012, and both have 14 professional wins in their careers. From there, 11 of Jordan’s 14 wins have come on the PGA Tour, where only seven of Koepka’s wins are on the PGA Tour.

Koepka turned pro the summer of 2012 after his time at Florida State University, where he was a three-time All-American, and quickly got his first professional win on the Challenge Tour. By the summer of 2013, Brooks had won a total of four times on the Challenge Tour in less than a year. This earned Brooks his European Tour card for the rest of 2013, and entire 2014 season.

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Spieth turned pro shortly after his sophomore season at the University of Texas at only 19 years old. Jordan didn’t win as quickly as Brooks, but Jordan was seeing much tougher competition on the PGA Tour, rather than the Challenge Tour. Jordan would breakthrough in 2013 winning the John Deere Classic after a lengthy playoff with Zach Johnson and David Hearn.

2015 was a life-changing year for both Koepka and Spieth, in different ways. For Brooks, he recorded his first PGA Tour win at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and for the first time in his career, played in all four of the year’s majors. However, his season was a far cry from Spieth’s.

Jordan won five tournaments in 2015, most notably the Masters, U.S. Open, and the Tour Championship, in route to winning the FedEx Cup. No one can argue Spieth’s 2015 season is one of the best of all-time and catapulted Jordan to huge fame among the sports world.

From the start of the 2016 season through the 2017 Open Championship Jordan would win five more events, including the 2017 Open Championship, leaving him one major short of the Grand Slam.

As of now, that’s where Jordan’s winning record ends, Spieth has yet to win another event since his iconic win at Royal Birkdale. And although the highs of Jordan’s career to this point ended in 2017, the highs of Koepka’s career were just starting.

Koepka’s second PGA Tour win wouldn’t come until the 2017 season, but it was a huge one, winning the U.S. Open at Erin Hills. Brooks wouldn’t win on the PGA Tour again for another 364 days, when he defended his title and won back to back U.S. Open titles.

Two months later Brooks won again, and it was another major. Brooks won the 2018 PGA Championship and finished his great 2018 with a win at the CJ Cup. Which brings us to last year, Brooks won twice last season on the PGA Tour, once again going back-to-back in a major, winning the 2019 PGA Championship. He also won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude in July of last year, adding another big win to his resume.

As you would expect, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka have been teammates at both the Presidents and Ryder Cups in their careers. Spieth and Koepka were both apart of the victorious 2016 and defeated 2018 Ryder Cup teams, as well as the winning 2017 Presidents Cup team. However, Jordan was a member of the victorious 2013 and 2015 Presidents Cup and losing 2014 Ryder Cup teams without Koepka.

Both Koepka and Spieth have spent multiple weeks as the world’s number one player in the past. Brooks first gained the title in October of 2018 and has held the title on four different occasions, lasting a total of 47 weeks.

Spieth first gained the ranking of world number one in August of 2015. Just as Brooks, Jordan has held the title on four different occasions, but he has only totalled 26 weeks as world number one. The last time he has done so was 2015.

Two other things that should be considered when deciding on who has had a better career, their sponsors and earnings. To date, Spieth has earned just over $40 million dollars on tournament winnings alone, Brooks has earned just over $30 million. With that being said, Jordan has played 51 more events than Brooks Koepka has.

When looking at sponsorships it is hard to ignore Brooks Koepka is sponsored by what most consider the biggest sponsorship in the game, Nike. Now yes, Nike is a great sponsor, but when you think Nike golf, do you think about Brooks first? I think Tiger and Rory.

When you look at Jordan, he is the face of Under Armour golf. Although Under Armour doesn’t carry the weight that Nike does in golf, Spieth pretty much brought Under Armour into the golf game and has almost singlehandedly made the brand mainstream.

So, in a nutshell, who has had the better career to this point…

A 3-time major winner, 3-time Presidents Cup champion, Ryder Cup champion, FedEx Cup Champion, 26-week world number one, 40-million-dollar career earner, and the face of Under Armour golf… vs a 4-time-major winner, a Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup champion, a WGC winner, 47-week world number one, 30-million-dollar career earner, and sponsored by the most recognizable brand in the world?