Few golfers relish a U.S. Open quite like Brooks Koepka. One at the Olympic Club was his first major tournament appearance. An iteration at Pinehurst saw his debut top-five finish in a major. He first lifted a major trophy at Erin Hills in 2017, and then he did it again the next year at Shinnecock Hills.
But Koepka has this week become a paradoxical, brand-name exhibit in an unexpected debate: Is this U.S. Open, the first at the venerable and cloistered Los Angeles Country Club, too easy? It was only on Tuesday that Koepka had been talking about how the tournament’s historical ferocity was a perverse source of comfort.