Before the Masters in April, the most we had seen of Brooks Koepka in recent times had been in the Netflix documentary Full Swing.
In an episode almost entirely dedicated to Koepka, we got an in-depth look at some of his last months on the PGA Tour, a missed cut at the 2022 Masters and his eventual decision to depart with golf's traditions and join the controversial breakaway LIV Golf league.
It was a portrait of a fallen giant. Between 2017 and 2019, Koepka won four majors and became the sport's most dominant big-game force. When the lights were brightest, Koepka emerged like only the greats can.
Then came injury in the form of debilitating knee issues, the kind that made it tough for Koepka to walk, let alone swing a golf club. This man whose entire identity had been forged by effortless dominance — a pure athlete bullying a buttoned-up sport — suddenly couldn't dominate anymore.
That was the Koepka we saw in Full Swing. Downtrodden, lost, coming to terms with a new reality he had never imagined for himself. The grand takeaway from it all was one Koepka quote — "I can't compete with these guys week in, week out".
Twelve months later, Koepka is a major champion again. Two things have changed in his life to take him from his lowest point to the top of the mountain again — he got healthy, and he joined LIV Golf.
As much as this victory is Koepka's alone, it will also be framed as one for his Saudi-backed, Greg Norman-led golf league.
The golf world has often pontificated what would happen when a LIV player won a major. That it has come at only the fourth time of asking will only add to the weight of those questions.
If nothing else, the first two majors of 2023 have entirely quashed the notion that joining LIV is a death sentence for a player's career.
Conventional wisdom had pushed the idea that forgoing the grind of the PGA Tour for LIV — where there is no cut during events, the money is guaranteed and there is little to no risk of losing your place — would see the competitive juices start to dry up, leaving these players short of practice and at a disadvantage during the majors.
For some players, maybe that would be true. But for most of the guys that made the switch, the exact opposite is bearing out. From the outside, it appears that a step back from the week-to-week scrap has only served to keep the batteries charged for the ones that matter, and Koepka is front of that list.
He's spent his whole career saying the majors are the only things that really matter to him. Now he's found himself in a situation where he can prove it, where he can travel around the world effectively playing practice rounds and keeping the mind fresh for the weeks he cares about.
And it turns out he was right — a T2 at the Masters and a win at the PGA is hard to argue with.
Maybe you could make the same argument for Phil Mickelson, who had a bolt from the blue week of magic at the Masters, or Bryson DeChambeau, who has largely been a no-show at LIV events but played brilliantly for a T4 finish at Oak Hill this week.
This has to be a selling point for Norman and co in the future. There's no doubt that there will have been PGA Tour players somewhat interested in the LIV concept (or, more accurately, the money) who held fears of what the switch could do for their greater career ambitions. That now seems like less of a reason not to join.
Outside of a recruiting chip, what else does LIV gain from a Koepka win? Does it give those events the prestige they seek? Does it aid in their pursuit of Official World Golf Ranking points? Will the crowds surge and the TV ratings explode and LIV's fight for world domination finally be won?
The answer to all of those questions is probably not.
LIV still is what it is. If you're a fan already, like the many thousands of folks at The Grange in Adelaide were, you'll still be a fan. If you have strong moral opposition to it, that clearly won't be changed by a Koepka win at Oak Hill. If you're simply not interested, then you can consider that needle unmoved.
Brooks Koepka winning a major is significant because it's a major, and this day is now the most significant in the story of one of the great golfers of our generation. Just as it was for Jon Rahm at the Masters, it's a fascinating story for an athlete, not the tour he plays for week to week.
Perhaps, in time, we will look back at this as a seminal moment for LIV, as the singular moment the floodgates reopened and the players went running to LIV in hopes of "doing a Brooks".
But even if that happens, and there is absolutely no guarantee of it, all it will really do is fracture golf even further. And at that point, the only thing that will really become true is that the majors are truly all that matters.
It's a truth that Brooks Koepka has been telling us all along.
