“I think sometimes the majors are the easiest ones to win,” said Brooks Koepka ahead of his title defense at Bethpage Black at the 2019 PGA Championship. And that’s what the former world no. 1 has always been known for: ‘a guy who is able to perform only at the majors.’ While his stats prove the same with 5 major victories, his last few runs have not been that good. Since his win at the 2023 PGA Championship, his major performances have been abysmal. Now, Koepka seemed to have returned to form yet again at the opening round of the 2025 U.S. Open.

At Oakmont on Thursday, he carded 2-under, which placed him in a tie for third on the leaderboard. He was ecstatic after this, as he should be. “It’s nice to put a good round together; it’s been a while,” Koepka said after his round. You see, in the first majors of the season, Brooks missed the cut badly. His best finishes last year in majors were forgettable T26s at the US Open and the PGA Championship. Now, despite showing signs of improvement and signaling a possible return to his dominant form, critics in the golf world were not convinced and continued to take jabs at the major champion.

Golf critics spoke on the No Laying Up podcast: “How many times we’ve forgotten about this guy, and he just makes a rise up a major championship board on a Thursday, and you feel like an idiot. I’m not going to kick myself on this one.” I mean, he had absolutely no form.” And it’s kind of true.

While Koepka is only allowed to play the majors, other than LIV events, his performance at LIV Golf isn’t going too well for him either. He has five wins on LIV Golf, but his last win was in 2024, at the LIV Golf Greenbrier, where he won in a playoff against Jon Rahm. His last four starts this year have only seen a tied 17th finish to be his best. And because of his current form, several sportsbooks gave him a very low possibility to turn things around.

“Some books are going off at like 90 to 1 ahead of this week, and I’m not, like, positive it’s going to last for 72 holes, but there were a lot of signs of, like, US Open uh Brooks that are like, ‘Hey, 72 holes here’s the strategy; we’ll add them all up at the end, see where we stand. I’m not going to get caught with my hand caught in the cookie jar anywhere; I’m not going to make mistakes,'” said the hosts on the podcast, hinting at Koepka’s first round with an eagle, 2 bogeys, and 2 birdies that helped him card one of the best scorecards of the day, making us feel that the fiery, fierce, ticked-off, on-a-mission Brooks Koepka has arrived.

“I’m going to not apologize for missing that one. I mean, since Oak Hill, I don’t think he’s had a top 10 at a major, and not only that, it’s like he hasn’t even been close. He hasn’t made a cut at any of the majors this year, no real signs of life,” they highlighted, given he missed two cuts. This season is the second time he missed back-to-back cuts in a major. The last time it happened was in 2012 in his first two major starts of his career, but they were separated by more than a year.

Having said all of this, Brooks knows that he has been struggling, as he opened up about them after his round at Oakmont and the changes, he’s working on to return to his form.

Brooks Koepka opens up about his struggles

Koepka admits that the missed cuts have haunted him: “I would say from the first weekend in April until about last week, you didn’t want to be around me. It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven’t been happy. It’s been very irritating… I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me.” This is a big hit to Koepka’s self-esteem, as he has been the number one player in the past, with 5 major wins, thrice at the PGA Championship (2018, 2019 & 2023) and twice at the U.S. Open (2017 & 2018).

While his OWGR was still 22 when he joined LIV Golf in 2022, it dropped to 118 in March 2023 until his tied second finish at the 2023 Masters flung him back to 13. But after his win at the 2023 PGA Championship, his OWGR has only drastically declined since ranking 425th.

He elaborated on his struggles with himself and what was leading to the frustrations—”I wasn’t consistent enough. When I felt like I cut one, it was drawing. I felt like if I blocked one, it would go straight. I just had no sense of reality of where things were,” Koepka added, implying his perception was far off from what he would have wanted. But he has been working on some changes with his coach, Pete Cowen, and attributed his form at Oakmont this week to the work they did together.

“We worked pretty hard last week. Pete Cowen and Jeff Pierce were on me pretty good, and Pete got into me again on Monday, in the bunker for about 45 minutes. I just sat there, and he scolded me pretty well,” Koepka said, indicating that he has been working hard to get rid of his bad swing habits, and it’s definitely trending in the right direction.