Monday 20 May 2019 17:49, UK
Andrew Coltart reflects on Brooks Koepka's "incredible" victory in the PGA Championship and Rory McIlroy's performance as well as looking ahead to the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in 2024.
Brooks Koepka is rewriting the record books, it's fantastic to witness. It's great to be a part of this while he's out there doing it. When he puts himself in the class of the greats of the game [by defending these two titles], he could go on to do so much more.
He's led from start to finish and when he birdied 10 and DJ bogeyed 11 we thought 'that's it, it's all over'. It would be very easy for him to switch off mentally, and maybe he did and you can almost kind of understand that.
It was only after 15, when DJ birdied and the difference was then one and the American crowd maybe got on his back, that the mental fortitude [he showed] to pick himself up - a lot of other people would just crumble - hold himself together and go through that finishing line was sensational.
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It's incredible when you consider the quality of players who have not managed to win majors - Westwood, Donald, Montgomerie, Fowler - there's an incredible array of rich talent, and for him to come out and win four of the last eight is just incredible, it really is. [It's] a very, very strong performance.
Rory McIlroy is getting off to bad starts and then he is pulling a good performance out of the tournament right at the end of the week and making it look like it was better than it actually was. But he never really gave himself a chance.
I'm a little bit worried about the aggressiveness. He plays super-aggressive and then makes the odd mistake, and then it's almost too much to get back at the end of the day.
If he can try and temper that a little bit and get himself right involved again and start to dominate the field and put pressure on the other players - a bit like Brooks has done this week - then again we will see the best of Rory.
The Ryder Cup will be hostile, there's no doubt about that. The sooner the European guys figure that out the better because you can't stop that.
The Ryder Cup has grown so much over the years that it's not just golf fans that come to watch, it's sports fans and sports fans react in similar manners at the various other sports of their interest.
We are going to get that at the Ryder Cup, there was a little bit of it at Hazeltine. We'll see more of it there and of course there is also the aspect of alcohol. When alcohol is involved people just tend to lose sight of where they are and what they are actually witnessing. But it will be an incredible atmosphere.
