Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka hope to party like it’s 2019

NASSAU, Bahamas – What’s old is new again.

At the risk of succumbing to pre-pandemic nostalgia, next year could recall the golden days of 2019. Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, who dominated – Koepka won PGA of America Player of the Year, McIlroy PGA TOUR POY – are showing glimpses of their old form.

“I worked my tail off over the last two months and I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Koepka, who shot a second-round 67 to reach 10 under, one behind Bryson DeChambeau (64) halfway through the Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Club.

McIlroy, who won in his only official TOUR start in the fall (THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT), and who shot a 71 and is four back, is playing so well he said he wished it was March. He’s swinging too well, he added, to risk mothballing the clubs for an extended period over Christmas.

Both players are former world No. 1s, four-time major winners, and in their early 30s. (Koepka is 31, McIlroy 32.) What brought them down to earth, though, was not any one thing.

Koepka was slowed by leg and hip injuries and missed parts of the last two seasons. He qualified for but did not play in the 2019 Presidents Cup, missed THE PLAYERS Championship last season, and admits his results were generally lacking. And frustrating.

“Not good enough for me,” he said.

On the plus side, he won the Waste Management Phoenix Open last season, and beat Bryson DeChambeau in The Match in Las Vegas last week. Koepka also loves what he’s seen so far from his Cleveland Golf and Srixon gear, especially the ball. He will go into holiday mode after the Hero, to return at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui in January.

When will he go from very close to totally back? “If I wasn't going on a family vacation,” he said, “putting the clubs away next week, I think by the end of next week I'd have it.”

With his health and his game returning, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if he’s about to turn back the clock to ’19, when he successfully defended his PGA Championship title among three total wins; was runner-up at the Masters and U.S. Open; racked up nine top-10s; and led the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 as the regular-season FedExCup points leader.

Could he get back to peak Brooks Koepka, circa 2018 and ’19?

“That wasn’t peak,” he said. “Just wait.”

McIlroy’s swoon was more his own doing. Noting the way DeChambeau was mauling courses, especially at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, the Northern Irishman went on a quest to find more distance. He also changed coaches.

Alas, neither move paid dividends. Although McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship in the spring, the first time he’d won the same TOUR event three times, he battled inconsistency. It all reached a crescendo in a deflating Ryder Cup performance that left McIlroy in tears as the European side got flattened by the Americans.

Regrouping, McIlroy went back to his coach since boyhood, Michael Bannon, and the things that had made him great. The results followed as he captured THE CJ CUP, becoming the 39th player to reach 20 wins on TOUR. He had one hand on the trophy at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai before a bad break – his approach shot clanking off the pin and into a bunker at the 15th hole – sent him into a tailspin. He signed for a 74 (T6) and ripped his shirt in frustration.

Golf has an uncanny way of presenting players with the same situation that just got the better of them, and McIlroy got another chance to lose his cool as he doubled the 9th hole Thursday.

Instead of folding, though, he rallied, playing the back nine in 5 under par.

“I really turned a corner after the Ryder Cup,” he said.

Now he wants to find the consistency that defined his game in ’19, when his TOUR-leading 14 top-10 finishes in 19 starts, and three victories – including THE PLAYERS and TOUR Championship – yielded his second FedExCup title. He also won the Byron Nelson Award for adjusted scoring average (69.057) for the third time in his career.

“Just being me is good enough,” he said at THE CJ CUP, “and maybe the last few months I was trying – not to be someone else, but maybe trying to add things to my game or take things away from my game. I know that when I do the things that I do well, this is what I'm capable of.

“I'm capable of winning a lot of events on the PGA TOUR,” he continued, “and being the best player in the world.”

Koepka could say the same. The way things are going at the Hero and elsewhere, and given the growing confidence of both players, it may not be long before one of the headliners from 2019 has climbed back to the top of the ziggurat.

Then again, if recent history is any indication, it could be both.