A Feeling Of Inevitability

FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK | What if Brooks Koepka is just getting started?

What if the three major championships he has already won (in seven starts) are the kindling on a long-burning fire?

Might Koepka ultimately win a double-digit number of major championships as he suggested Tuesday in his pre-PGA Championship press conference?

Koepka dropped that self-revelatory nugget in so comfortably – “I mean, I’ve got a number. I don't see why you can’t get to double digits,” he said – it was easy to miss. It was an audacious statement considering only three players in history – Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Walter Hagen – have won 10 or more majors, but Koepka has a way of boiling things down to their simplest form and seeing through the smoke.

Seven more means winning as many majors as Arnold Palmer, Bobby Jones and Sam Snead won in their careers. To which Koepka would probably respond, “Yeah, I know.”

Naturally, Koepka went out Thursday – grouped with Tiger Woods and Francesco Molinari – and deconstructed the Bethpage Black be...