No Reservations: Brooks Koepka

Sneak Peek: This story will appear in the Jan. 28 edition of Global Golf Post.
Brooks Koepka is done for the day in Hawaii, a gym session and a practice round having been checked off his to-do list, as he settles into a chair in the players’ dining area at Kapalua’s Plantation Course.

The place is empty, seemingly everyone else having gone off to enjoy a late afternoon in Maui. Koepka has some beach time booked closer to sunset when he will sit and write out his 2019 goals, some professional, some personal, some just for fun.

In bed by 10 p.m. every night on the road is a big one. He did it in 2018 and that worked out pretty well with two major championship victories, so it’s back on the list. He won multiple times. Check. He missed his only cut in Canada and that one stayed with him like an itchy bug bite.

In the quiet dining room, Koepka pushes back the brim of his cap and he’s practically transformed.

He plays golf under a hat pulled low and tight, like a helmet that guards him. At times, Koepka seems tough to find under his cap and he likes it that way, working in his own world and in his own way. He’s won three of the last seven major championships played so the look fits him as snugly as his shirts.

Koepka, 28, insists there’s a sizable difference between the stoic image he projects on the golf course and the person is he away from the game and the simple act of pushing his cap back has the effect of revealing him.

“A lot of times, I think I’m so focu...