Brooks Koepka is bringing his major mindset to the Travelers Championship

Brooks Koepka loves winning majors. He’s won four of the last nine he’s competed in over the last three years. Koepka earned his most recent major title at the PGA Championship last month and just finished second at the U.S. Open.

Of the 11 golfers who have made the cut at the last six majors, Koepka is one of six who has played all six of those events under par in the aggregate. Koepka has shot 43-under par over the last six majors, with the second-best under-par aggregate being Xander Schauffele at 20-under. Absolute dominance.

But Koepka haters are quick to point out that the No. 1 player in the world only has two non-major wins on the PGA Tour in his career, leading many to believe that he just doesn’t care about the non-major tournaments. In fact, Koepka even admitted it this past spring when discussing how easy he felt it was to win major events.

“One hundred fifty-six in the field, so you figure at least 80 of them I’m just going to beat,” Koepka said at Bethpage Black. “From there, the other — you figure about half of them won’t play well from there, so you’re down to about maybe 35. And then from 35, some of them just — pressure is going to get to them. It only leaves you with a few more, and you’ve just got to beat those guys.”

Ahead of the RBC Canadian Open two weeks ago, Koepka said he “could care less what happens” in his lone tuneup before the U.S. Open and that “the result doesn’t matter.” So when talking to reporters on Wednesday ahead of the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands, Koepka wanted to dispel the notion that he feels non-majors are not important.

“Let me set the record straight. It’s not that I don’t care about the event. Some people wrote — took it a little bit differently,” Koepka said.

“I wouldn’t tee it up if I didn’t want to win,” Koepka continued. “Not everything is results based with me. It’s about the process. I think that’s why I’m able to play so well in the majors, because I’m not worried about winning.”

“So if I can get the process down the result is going to come. That’s kind of how I feel. Even this week. Just go back to the process. Same thing every week. Mentally if my process is there I’m excited. I even told my caddie today, We’re going to try to take the mental approach we do at the majors this week. I’m going to try something maybe a little bit different and see how it works out.”

Koepka, who finished T19 at the 2018 Travelers Championship, enters this week’s tournament with the highest odds to win and will be playing alongside defending champion Bubba Watson and Tony Finau for the first two rounds.

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