Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka has fallen back in love with “the grind” of PGA Tour life. He also feels “in complete control” of his game, both of which should worry his fellow Tour players as the season careens toward the summer.

Unlike many of the stars who contended at last week’s PGA Championship (with the exceptions of Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth), Koepka is taking no time off following the second major of the year. He’s teeing it up at this week’s 2026 CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

Due to the penalties he accepted to enable his PGA Tour return, Koepka needs to play whenever he’s eligible as he tries to work his way up the FedEx Cup rankings to qualify for the PGA Tour’s biggest events.

It’s a big departure from his years with LIV Golf, where Koepka only had to worry about qualifying for majors.

But along with providing updates on his game and the PGA Tour grind during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, Koepka also revealed one way in which the PGA Tour players have a “huge advantage” over their LIV Golf counterparts.

Brooks Koepka reveals ‘newfound love’ in PGA Tour return: ‘Enjoying the grind’

This week’s CJ Cup Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch represents the 11th start of Koepka’s surprising PGA Tour return, made possible through the newly formed (and short-lived) Returning Member Program.

A big catch in Koepka’s deal was that he could not accept sponsor’s exemptions into Signature Events this year. If he wants to play in the Tour’s biggest tournaments, he has to play his way in.

“Every week is a new fresh start for me, and I’m obviously with my penalty I’m not allowed to play every event, and if I get the chance to tee up, I want to play,” Koepka said on Wednesday in Texas.

As the season has advanced, Koepka’s worked his way closer and closer to the Signature Event promised land. He earned a top 10 at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches in February and put up solid finishes at the Players Championship (T13), the Masters (T12) and at the ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic (T11), which was contested the same week as the Truist Championship, a Signature Event.

That’s moved him up to 69th in the FedEx Cup standings. The top 50 automatically qualify for all Signature Events, and Koepka is just a few spots away from the Aon Next 10, another pathway into those tournaments.

Rather than complain about having to grind it out like a Tour rookie, though, Koepka revealed that he’s “fallen back in love” with the experience.

“I’ve mentioned it a couple times, I’ve kind of fallen back in love with this. I’m enjoying the grind. I’m enjoying battling it out here,” Koepka said on Wednesday. “Yeah, it’s just a newfound love, a newfound passion for the game, and something that I’m really, really enjoying being back on the road and grinding it out and trying to find it in the dirt. I think there’s something to be said about that.”

He added: “Each week is becoming more and more fun, and I very much enjoy that.”

His increasingly solid results help with that, no doubt. According to Koepka, his improved finishes are a direct result of his game rounding into form.

“I’m driving the ball fantastic. I feel like I’m in complete control. Ever since Augusta, where we noticed the setting was at B1 and we switched it back to A1 on that driver, I can work it both ways. The flight’s very, very good. Iron play’s been fantastic,” Koepka said. “I feel like I’m in complete control of my golf ball — shape, spin, trajectory, everything seems to be right where I need it to be. It’s just a matter of rolling those putts in.”

With another high finish this week, Koepka could finally gain access to the Signature Events. But even if he doesn’t, he’s already qualified for next month’s most important tournament: the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Koepka, a two-time U.S. Open champion, captured his second title at Shinnecock in 2018.

Koepka says gear access on PGA Tour superior to LIV: ‘Sometimes I wasn’t privy’

The “grind” is not the only thing Koepka is enjoying about his PGA Tour return. On Wednesday, he also shared another way his life on Tour is better than his time on LIV Golf: equipment.

Specifically, Koepka explained that his access to new equipment on the PGA Tour, for testing purposes and mid-tournament adjustments, is far better than his gear access was at LIV Golf events.

“Yeah, it’s totally different, like I said, just being able to see all the different — just to have so many options, it’s maybe a little bit overwhelming, at the same time, because access to equipment trucks, grip changes, things like that, sometimes I wasn’t privy to over the last four, five years. During majors was kind of the only time you saw it,” Koepka revealed.

He continued: “So to be back out here and have the opportunity to if you need to make a slight change in something, it’s a whole lot easier, or you damage a club during play, to get a replacement, a shaft change, whatever it might be.”

He went on to describe the PGA Tour equipment treatment as a “huge advantage” over LIV Golf.

“Just more access to everything, I think, has been a huge advantage,” he said. “I’m not going to do too much of that. I know I keep changing the putter pretty much every week now, but as far as the rest of the equipment that I have, I’m very satisfied with it. I’m very, very pleased with it.”

As to whether other LIV Golf players have called Koepka for advice on making the transition back to the PGA Tour, Koepka said no. The reason? He changed his phone number.

“I changed my number a while ago, so I don’t think many guys have my number, which is great,” Koepka said. “So I haven’t had to worry about too much of that.”

Our intro here pertains to Aaron Rai’s iron covers and his two gloves and his other unique characteristics, so I can understand if you want to click away, as the subject, while charming, has been talked about a bit excessively at this point. But there’s been something else going on with his quirks. I think it tells the bigger story.

It’s the thought of why he never changed. 

After all, we’re a society of mostly conformists. There’s comfort in that — and the absence of discomfort. Golf and life can be hard enough, but sticking out adds another element.

Unless, of course, you don’t give a you-know-what.  

Like Rai. And he just won a PGA Championship. 

“I think my dad played a really big role in that,” Rai said Sunday night. “For the most part, it was just the two of us who used to go onto the golf course and practice together, probably up until I was 13 or 14. So I think he was very much an advocate to really just stay in your lane, focus on the things that you can do.

“And I didn’t really mix with a lot of other junior golfers, which didn’t give me a perspective of what was normal. So I think he kind of sheltered me to be able to develop in a way that made sense for me, in a way that I guess was a little bit unique with two gloves, with iron covers, et cetera.

“I think by the time he probably allowed me to play more kind of club golf, play professional golf, I felt like I was strong enough in why I did certain things to be able to continue to move that forward. I knew the reasons why I do them. I believe in the reasons why I do them. So I had no reason to really shift from that as I got older. So, yeah, that’s probably the main reason behind it.”

That all said, I think it’s OK to emulate this thought. 

As we look back at the PGA Championship week that was at Aronimink Golf Club, let’s make that observation No. 1 then. We’ll try for 49 more, and, to help the mood, we’ll mix in some Philly music.

2. My grandpa had iron covers. Red ones even. 

3. Let’s talk more about Rai. I liked this answer when he was asked about his wife, Gaurika, who’s also a pro golfer:

“She’s been incredible. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I wouldn’t be here without her. Both as a companion, as a friend, as someone I’m sharing my life with, but also as a real support system for my game. She’s a professional golfer herself. So her mindset, her advice, her thoughts, whether it’s technique or the way I’m holding myself is absolutely invaluable. She encompasses so many different sides in her opinions.

“We even had a conversation yesterday for probably 30 minutes in the car just before we got back to the hotel, just speaking a little bit about today. Again, some of the things that she mentioned in the conversations were really with me today.

“Yeah, I really wouldn’t be here without her.”

4. What was that conversation in the car about? The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig wrote about that, and you can read her story here. 

5. Who wins in a match between husband and wife?

“We practice quite a lot together. Honestly she beats me more times than I beat her,” Rai said. “When we have putting contests, chipping contests, we do some wedge games on TrackMan, I do well to keep up with her. She really is that good.

“We play a little bit on the course, but I’ve played Sawgrass — that’s where we live — a little bit more than her, and I think that little bit of experience helps. But it’s still very close with us even on the course.”

6. How did the Rais meet? Golfweek’s Adam Schupak wrote about that, and you can read his story here. 

7. Where was Rai planning to celebrate after his win? As he said he wasn’t sure, Gaurika shouted at his press conference, “He’ll probably have Chipotle.”

“I do love Chipotle on the road,” Rai said. “So we’ll probably go to Chipotle.”

8. I also thought Rai’s story on how he played courses growing up was interesting. 

“Up until the age of around 12 years old, I used to play off basically a customized course length, which gradually got longer and longer every year from the age of kind of 7 to 12,” he said. “… I was playing off the fairways and trying to make the course short enough for me to score par or better even as an 8-, 9-, 10-year-old.

“I thought it was a great idea. My dad thought it was a great idea.”

As he aged, Rai farther and farther moved back. 

“My dad really thought that idea was great in terms of just installing the abilities and the skills to be able to score and the distance would just follow with age and with growth.”

9. Of course, if you’re going to read just one Rai story today, please make it be this one here. It’s about the time Rai and I hunted for ghosts. Seriously. 

10. You can learn a lot about a person through the thoughts of others, and I liked this one here, from pro Paul Waring. 

11. And below is a young Rai. Enjoy. 

13. So why were there so many players at or around the lead throughout the tournament? Certainly, there’s always the possibility of that happening — who’s to say that the best in the world can’t all go out and shoot the same score? 

But Aronimink seemed to dictate play — there weren’t many ways to approach holes, other than the safe route, so most everyone did that. Find the fairway, find the safe pocket on the green, hit a couple of putts and move on. 

The question is, how much of that is the course’s fault, and how much of that is the players’?  

14. Let’s talk more about Aronimink — and two of the big questions of the week: Was it a good course for the PGA? And was it set up properly?

Hmm, how much time do you have?

But maybe the answer is easier than you think, if you ask yourself this:

Did you like watching? 

I think that’s mostly what matters in this. Golf is entertainment.  

15. I did laugh when I heard Brandel Chamblee say on Golf Channel’s “Live From” show that a course manager knows they’ve set up a course right when the players start to [expletive]. 

16. Here are a couple player thoughts on Aronimink and the setup that I thought were interesting:

Said Rory McIlroy on Saturday: “Look, when you have a set of greens like this, you can start to frustrate people pretty easily, I think. You heard it in me last night. You heard it in Scottie [Scheffler]. I saw some of his comments. Shane [Lowry]. I think there was a lot of guys that were frustrated yesterday coming off the course.

“Again, it’s frustrating to us, but at the same time, it creates a helluva entering championship. If I wasn’t playing this tournament, I’d love what’s going on this week, but watching and playing are two different things.”

17. Said Patrick Reed on Saturday: “It’s just different. I mean, I think that’s the easiest way. It’s a different challenge, and that’s the cool thing about it is it’s on its own.

“But the great thing about all the golf courses we play, no matter where it is, whatever major championship we’re playing, if you’re hitting the ball well and you’re putting well, you’re going to be able to handle anything. We’re the best players in the world, so when they throw a really hard challenge at us, that’s when the top players are going to show up.”

18. Music break! The Roots’ “The Seed (2.0)” was heavily played during ESPN’s and CBS’ coverage, so let’s use it here. It’s a favorite. 

19. What would I, the 15-or-so handicap, shoot, with the wind, the rough and the pin locations, along with just the course itself? 

How much time do I have?

20. But man, a lot of folks were wrong about how the course would play. The predictions of low numbers had Jon Rahm feeling strange. 

“I would like to know who came up with that, by the way,” he said on Saturday. “Honestly, when I heard people talking about 20-under par, it made me question my ability to read a golf course, because I was looking at the greens and where they could put pin locations, and possible wind, I just — my mind was never — I actually got worried. I’m like if somebody shoots 20-under, the amount of records they’re going to break this week would be unheard of.

“You know why I think that can happen is also the fairways up here by the numbers are probably wide. They don’t play as wide as they really are. Holes like 7, 10, 15, with how much slope you have to the fairway, you have to hit a very accurate golf shot to be in it. Like that, you can add 2, too, 4 — maybe not on 6, but like I said, 10, 12, 15, 16, right?

“You need to hit — with the slope of the fairway and the wind going with the slope of the fairway, it plays a lot more difficult than I think a lot of people would have foreseen at first with how much they’re rolling out.”

21. Let’s talk about some players. 

In the first major since LIV Golf learned that it was losing its funding from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, Rahm, one of LIV’s biggest stars, tied for second. I thought one of the more interesting quotes of the week came during his pre-tournament press conference, where he was asked what he learned from a strong showing at last year’s PGA. 

“It was really fun to be out there in the landscape nowadays in which as players in LIV we hear a lot of things from articles, from social media, from comments,” Rahm said. “While I understand why things are being said, it’s something you have to deal with.

“To go on that Sunday playing against Scottie, that has the lead, and to feel the support and love from the crowd is what made it really enjoyable. To realize that sometimes the truth is very different from what this makes or made up to be. When I made that birdie putt on 11 and I hit those good shots on 12 and 13 and almost made the putt on 13, the support from the crowd and the cheering from the crowd was what made it so much fun.

“It was a realization of having such support from the crowd and playing good golf that made me realize in a way how I’m truly perceived from the public, as opposed to what I read sometimes.”

22. Bryson DeChambeau, another LIV star, shot seven-over over two rounds and missed the cut, after missing the cut at the Masters. 

What are your expectations for him at the U.S. Open, where he’s won twice?

23. Cam Smith had missed four straight cuts in the majors, then tied for seventh at the PGA. He recently started working with swing coach Claude Harmon III, after moving on from Grant Field, whom Smith had been guided by since he was 9. 

“Probably one of the most difficult phone calls I’ve ever had to make,” Smith said Sunday.

“And, yeah, it’s still kind of lingering, but I feel like I’ve made the right call, and I can see it in my golf and just my strike of the ball and seeing some different shots. It’s been nice.”

24. Patrick Reed played the Masters in April, didn’t play for four weeks, then tied for 10th at the PGA. Interestingly, he’ll have the same schedule heading into the U.S. Open — no tournaments for four weeks — as he’s been mostly playing a DP World Tour schedule while serving a PGA Tour suspension due to his time with LIV Golf. 

“Yeah, this year’s a little different,” he said. “Honestly, I enjoyed my time at home. I enjoyed actually getting to grind, to prepare, and work on things and get ready for this week. … Who knows, it might be a new thing.”

25. My favorite exchange of the week? This one:

Moderator to McIlroy, after he shot a four-over 74 in the first round: “How would you describe your opening round?”

McIlroy to moderator: “Sh*t.”

26. My favorite story this week? This one, from Justin Thomas, who was asked on Sunday if there was an “art” to sitting on a clubhouse lead. 

“I don’t know if there’s an art,” he said. “I can tell you how there isn’t because it happened to me one time in Hartford, Conn., one year. It was actually the same day that [Jim] Furyk shot 58, I think it was. I shot like 61 or 62, and I finished pretty similar, like the leaders were on the middle of the front nine.

“I had a buddy that was out there watching me, and we went in the clubhouse and probably had like four or five beers at lunch. Next thing you know, it’s two-and-a-half hours later, and I’m still the leader in the clubhouse. The wind picked up 15, 20 mph, and the leaders were on like 15. Jimmy [Johnson] was caddieing for me at the time. He’s at a Subway like an hour and a half away. He’s like what do we do?

“I’ve never not wanted to be in a playoff before, but I kind of didn’t want to be in a playoff then. That wouldn’t have been a good situation.”

27. It’s strange not seeing Scottie Scheffler in the top three or so, right? That’s Tiger-like.  

28. Alex Smalley will win a major. Maybe this year still. 

29. I think Xander Schauffele will win another major. Maybe this year still.

30. I think Ludvig Aberg will win multiple majors. Maybe this year still. 

31. I think Garrick Higgo will never miss another major tee time again. Notably, Golfweek’s Schupak reported here that Higgo has also parted ways with his caddie. 

32. Music break! Let’s go with “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” by Hall & Oates. 

33. I want to see Michael Block at next year’s PGA. Golf needs personalities, and he is one.

34. Next year’s PGA is in Texas, Jordan Spieth’s home state. The grand slam happens there, right?  

35. The Spieth shot below is one of the best of the week. Maybe the best. 

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The beauty of it all, at the end of the day and at the end of this 108th PGA Championship, is that AI cannot touch it. Along those same lines, you can spend all the money you want on marketing, you can do whatever you may care to do on Instagram and X, and you can YouTube yourself until your face turns blue.

But by Sunday night at a major, as this global cross-country proves again and again, the shots are the shots, the scores are the scores, the lies are the lies, the weather is the weather — and none of it is for sale. Live golf is a place where prediction markets can go to die. How great is that?

This PGA Championship was not won by Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Justin Rose, Patrick Reed, Matt Fitzpatrick, Scott Scheffler, Jordan Spieth or 54-year-old Padraig Harrington, to offer you the full list of former major winners who finished under par here. It was won by Aaron Rai, hardworking 31-year-old Englishman of Indian descent who plays on the PGA Tour and lives in Jacksonville, Fla. He earned the right to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy the old-fashioned way. He nine under parred it.

Rai won by three over Rahm, who is also 31. In the alphabetical listings for next year’s European Ryder Cup team, nobody is getting between these two guys. Appearance and manner is another thing. Rahm’s beard alone has to be worth a half-shot on any given Sunday, just as Rory McIlroy’s down-the-fairway strut is worth something. Rai, with his slender physique and modest manner, with a golf glove on his left hand and on his right, is not going to make other pros quiver on their way from the first tee to the first green. But Rai’s rounds at Aronimink were 70, 69, 67 and 65. This Donald Ross course played hard, for four straight day. He played some studly golf.

“It definitely feels like a journey,” Rai said in victory, in a British accent that hints at his own long path from a working-class town on the outskirts of Birmingham, England, to this leafy Philadelphia suburb. “Everybody in this field has a journey to share, and I’m not an exception to that.” What a selfless and modest thing to say. One thing this man is not, for sure, is a country-club brat.

This win did not come out of nowhere. (Except maybe in this sense: Rai played in the third-to-last group of the day, not a likely twosome to produce the winner. Then again, when the leaders are stacked like sardines in a can through three rounds, as they were here, winners can come from most any starting time.) Rai turned pro at 17 and has spent 14 years playing the world and getting better through the years and on the shoulders of these many miles.

Gary Player, the great South African golfer who won the 1962 PGA Championship here, turned pro at 17, too. Player is 90 now and was at the awards ceremony on Sunday night, wearing a blood-red blazer and a grandfatherly smile. Player is forever celebrating the global game and unlikely paths to excellence. He welcomed Aaron Rai to golf’s center stage with sting-your-hands applause.

Maybe you didn’t have Rai in your office pool. Maybe you weren’t talking about him around the barbeque on Saturday night. That’s not his fault. The opposite. That’s the thing we’re celebrating here. The Masters was won by a son of working-class Belfast. McIlroy has a well-known journey in this game, but every golfer, pro or am, has a journey story to share. You can always ask other golfers about their starts. It will always yield an interesting answer. Aaron Rai started at a par-3 course near his family’s home. His parents would take him there.

For the better part of 100 years, the winners of men’s majors were exclusively white. Then came Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Michael Campbell, J.J. Spaun, now Aaron Rai. Someday and not too long from now this won’t be a thing at all. Until that time, it’s worth noting, because this game is better when people from every possible background, and from all corners of the globe, have a path to it. You can’t win a major if you don’t have a place to start playing in the first place. Aaron Rai started playing at the 3 Hammers Golf Complex. He won at Aronimink.

He was at the awards ceremony with his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, a professional golfer herself. If her Indian name does not trip off your tongue, you can always practice it. That’s up to you. Saturday night, with dusk approaching, Rai was practicing alone in the short-game area here. No caddie, no bag, no entourage. Just one lone golfer wearing two gloves playing one pitch shot after another with one club.

Maybe Rai will win more majors, maybe he won’t. We can promise you this: He is not a fluke winner. He is not a flash in the pan. He just was not the guy you were expecting to win.

His manner is lovely. In victory, he spoke of his wife, movingly. He spoke of his parents and his siblings and their sacrifices for his golf. He spoke of his sponsor — not a company but an actual person, a man named Shabir Randereenot, a sort of second father to Rai. He spoke of this game and his path through it. If you’re looking for a new golfing hero, one with no sense of entitlement, we point you to this newest name on the Wanamaker Trophy. 

“There’s so much hard work and discipline that goes into acquiring the skills to become better,” the winner of this 108th PGA Championship said Sunday night. “Nothing is ever given in this game.”

He spoke of the focus golf requires, the attention it demands, the lessons in humility it offers. Humility, Aaron Rai said, was one of golf’s core values, and at the foundation of his life, too.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com