Brooks Koepka used to be ruthless but he missed a golden Masters chance

I t was just gone four o’clock when Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka made it to Juniper, Augusta’s precipitous little par-three 6th. The sun had come out, the clouds had scattered and the mercury was finally rising. Koepka had only just given up the lead he had been holding since he made a birdie to pull one shot clear on Friday morning. He and Rahm were tied in first place now, 10 under par, four shots clear of the field, and the gallery all around was waiting for Koepka to come back at him. Rahm had the honour. His tee shot was off. It landed on the front lip of the green and rolled back off it, 25 yards shy.

So this was Koepka’s opportunity. And he missed it. Koepka blew his tee shot way over the other way, off the back of the green and 10 yards on again. He watched Rahm swish a chip up to 6ft, settled himself for his – and pushed it five, 10, 15, 20, 25 feet from where he needed it to be. More often than not, Koepka scowls when he hits a bad shot. But after this one he just watched, dumbstruck, as the ball skittered further and further away from him, taking his hold on the 87th Masters with it.

Before this week Koepka had held the lead at the start of the last round of a major three times in his life: at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills in 2018, the PGA Championship at Bellerive later that same year and the PGA Championship again at Bethpage Black 12 months later. He won all three tournaments. Back then Koepka was playing from what David Mamet’s salesmen might call the ABC school of golf. Always. Be. Closing. He was utterly ruthless in the pursuit of majors, which were, he said repeatedly, the only tournaments he cared about.

It was six months after that second PGA Championship that Koepka shattered his kneecap in a freak