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Although not all online bettors like athletics, this sport is slowly becoming the preferred option in many countries outside Africa. Thanks to the good odds and a variety of markets, desktop and mobile bettors who choose it can find many options.

While talking about mobile betting, some things provide more options than others. In fact, the Betfred app makes it easy for you to place bets and use all features and bonuses, regardless if you are trying to bet on athletics or any other sport. The same applies to people using mobile sites for online gambling, but the apps offer better options.

Placing bets on athletics using an app has a lot of advantages that most people are not aware of. Therefore, it is time to learn more about them and see what people can expect to find.

Mobile apps allow athletics fans to watch the races from their handheld devices

Betting on athletics will allow people to choose from a wide range of events that take place worldwide. With that said, not all of them are short, meaning users will need to watch the action in real time if they want to bet on live races. This won’t be a problem for some bettors, but the majority of sports gamblers don’t have the time, so they’re looking for alternatives that will allow them to watch the same events on their mobile devices and bet on them.

People who like this sport and want to have an alternative when betting on it can access the live betting options via a mobile app. Not all apps are the same, but the best ones will always include all the athletic competitions on the desktop site. This also includes all markets and odds.

Some of the best applications will also provide mobile bettors with numerous features and even bonuses that are often not available to desktop bettors.

There are cases where people can scan QR codes while watching the races and access special perks

Some online bookmakers are always looking for new ways of gaining new customers, so they often decide to advertise what they offer. To achieve this, companies decide to sponsor some of the biggest competitions in the world of athletics because they know those things will attract a lot of customers.

Besides offering special markets and odds for some things, confident bookies will offer unique options to those watching the event. However, the only way to access them is by scanning a QR code leading them to the prize.

In terms of the unique perks, they can come in different forms and usually depend on the specific event. However, the most common ones include a deposit bonus, extra odds, or a unique feature that’s only available to some people.

Athletics is among the few sports that bookies can provide more markets for if users use a mobile device

Since many brands want to make sure their apps reach out to as many customers as possible, they provide them with a variety of perks. Many of them are universal, meaning that people who bet on all sports can use them, but since operators also want to adhere to special groups of people, they often target some of the sports that don’t always have that many fans among gamblers.

Athletics is one of them because many fans of this sport haven’t decided to bet on it yet. Bookies realise that the potential exists, so they try to promote their apps while attracting new customers who like this sport. This explains why some companies have so many things that make it special.

South African forward Juarno Augustus has signed a new contract with Northampton Saints.

Augustus said it was an "incredibly easy" decision to agree his undisclosed-length new deal at Saints.

"I know that my game has improved so much since I've come over thanks to the coaches, staff and players," he said.

After helping Saints finish fourth in the Premiership this season to reach the play-off semi-finals, Augustus says he is "100%, with the squad we have, we can go even further in the coming years."

Director of rugby Phil Dowson said the club were "delighted" Augustus was staying, adding "his ball-carrying ability clearly sets him apart - statistically he is one of the very best in the league - but he has huge desire to get better across the board and is improving all the time."

Gloucester-Hartpury still have "things to work on" says head coach Sean Lynn, despite moving six points clear at the top of the Premier 15s.

They are in the driving seat to secure a home semi-final in the play-offs with two games remaining.

Gloucester-Hartpury have never finished higher than fourth and only reached the semi-finals once in 2017.

"Everything I've spoken about - how do you defend this Gloucester-Hartpury team, how do you attack this Gloucester-Hartpury team - that has been our mentality all the way through from the first game to now, all the way at the business end," Lynn told BBC Sport.

"We've got things to work on, we know that we've still got to work on things

"We're making some line breaks and it's making sure we get that race to ruck, but if we do get that race to ruck we have to be effective. That's what we're looking at.

"It's small margins but they could be making big differences when you're going into those big games."

Lynn's side have led the Premier 15s almost all season and only dropped down to second briefly this spring after defeat to last year's champions Saracens, their only loss of the campaign so far.

But a win over Loughborough prior to the victory against Quins has moved them clear of Exeter Chiefs in second place.

"The effort these girls have put in over the last two weeks to come back from the Six Nations, I just can't fault it. It's amazing," Lynn added.

"[I'm most pleased with] the detail we've done all week. Last week we spoke about we were fixing problems on the field.

"But this week we fixed it in the training and everything just clicked out there - defensively, attack, transition from defence into attack it was brilliant and it was really pleasing."

LAS VEGAS -- It wasn't like the Dallas Stars didn't address why they lost a second straight overtime game to the Vegas Golden Knights.

If anything, there was more of a conversation around the circumstances of the tying goal in their 3-2 overtime loss Sunday in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals that sent the Stars to their first 0-2 series hole of these Stanley Cup playoffs.

Stars defenseman Ryan Suter had possession behind the net only for Golden Knights center Jack Eichel to come from behind and steal possession. Eichel played a give-and-go pass up the wall to Ivan Barbashev before Eichel shoveled a no-look, backhanded pass to Jonathan Marchessault, who beat Suter in coverage, in the low slot for a shot he lifted above Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger's glove for a 2-2 tie with 2:22 left in the third.

Marchessault's goal sent the game to overtime where Stars forward Wyatt Johnston nearly scored the winner 28 seconds into the frame before Chandler Stephenson netted the winning goal 44 seconds later.

The Stars cleared the puck out of their defensive zone but were caught in the midst of a line change that gave the Golden Knights a 4-on-3 advantage. From there, Mark Stone passed it to Shea Theodore, who fired a shot on net that Oettinger initially saved before Stephenson collected the rebound for the winner.

"Definitely in the overtime for sure. Poor line change," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said when asked about the smoothness in his team's line changes in the series. "It's a game of mistakes. They make a mistake, leave Johnston wide open in front of the net in overtime, too. It's just they stuck it in."

Both DeBoer and Suter spoke about what went wrong on Marchessault's goal that allowed the Golden Knights to get back into the game.

Suter was the first to speak.

"Did you watch it?" Suter said to a reporter. "Then, you know what happened."

He was then asked what he would have wanted to do differently in that situation.

"That's for us to talk about," Suter said. "Obviously, it wasn't the right play and it ended up past us."

As for DeBoer? He said he was "not going to start assigning blame" on around what happened on the tying goal.

"There's mistakes made, and they cashed in, and they made a real good play," DeBoer said. "Jack Eichel makes a world-class pass."

Being in a 2-0 series hole is an unfamiliar role for the Stars. They opened their first-and second-round series against the Minnesota Wild and Seattle Kraken with overtime defeats in Game 1 before winning Game 2 en route to winning those respective series.

Yet the inability to find success in overtime has been a familiar experience for the Stars this postseason. Stephenson's winning goal condemned the Stars to what is now an 0-4 record in the extra frame this postseason.

How DeBoer spoke about the Stars' effort in Game 2 was far different than how he sounded Friday after Game 1. DeBoer stressed that the Stars looked sharper Sunday than they did in the opener.

What Dallas achieved in the first two periods against Vegas was a reflection of what the Stars had done to reach the conference finals. Entering Sunday, they led all postseason teams in the fewest scoring chances per 60 in 5-on-5 play while allowing the third-fewest shots in 5-on-5 play, per Natural Stat Trick.

The Stars limited the Golden Knights, who are sixth in shots per 60, to a combined 10 shots through the first 40 minutes.

So, what changed? The Golden Knights started gaining control of the puck while finding ways to maximize that control. In their first two periods, they had a 41% shot share. But in the third period, the Golden Knights had a 63.45 shot share, which explains how they were able to break through for 12 shots despite not having any power-play chances.

After Game 1, DeBoer talked about why the Stars must find answers when it came to their overtime struggles.

Less than 48 hours later, overtime remains an equation the Stars are still trying to solve.

"We had a good chance right before they score," Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen said. "If we can capitalize on that and score on that, the series is 1-1. They got the bounce there and scored on that. Of course, it's little details and tough bounces sometimes. But we have to go out there and attack and try to score goals."

If you were looking for tears Sunday at the PGA Championship, there were none to be had in the day’s final two-ball. Brooks Koepka was happy, joyous even, following his victory at Oak Hill, but Brooks doesn’t really do tears, at least not publicly, and runner-up Viktor Hovland had a happy-to-be-there vibe after finishing two shots off the pace.

Fortunately for the sentimental types, there was Michael Block.

Block choked back his emotions Friday at Oak Hill when he made the cut at the PGA Championship. He was emotional, again, late Saturday when he found himself six shots off the lead and in the day’s fourth-to-last group paired alongside Rory McIlroy for the final round. And when he closed his week with a magical 71, the water works were quick to follow.

Even when his week was complete and he was tucked away from the fans who cheered his every step, there were tears when Michael Toth, the tournament director of Charles Schwab Challenge, called to inform him he’d received a sponsor’s exemption into next week’s Tour event: “Don’t tell me what you’re going to tell me because if you tell me I’m going to start crying,” Block said.

If Koepka as a feel-good story was hard to follow – and depending on which side of the PGA Tour-LIV Golf divide you fall it seems a decent chance it was – Block provided the perfect outlet. A 40-something with a “day job” moonlighting as a major championship contender with not even the slightest hint of pretentiousness or false pride.

You didn’t need a reason to root for Block. You needed tissues to wipe away the tears.

There wasn’t a dry eye when the 46-year-old club professional from Mission Viejo, Calif., crossed the bridge to the first tee. The roars echoed across Oak Hill and McIlroy, the world No. 3 and a member of the club, could only laugh.

From the outset, Block gave the golf world every reason to celebrate him as a wonderfully perfect anomaly, an endearing everyman who connects to Tour pros as easily as he does the weekend hackers.

Those sensibilities were there on Friday when he was asked about his tee shot at No. 5, which sailed well right of the green and was dubbed in most media circles a shank.

“In my head I'm going, you have got to be kidding me right now. I've been flushing it all day. Last couple days the driving range is like a video game. I see that, and I'm, like, oh, here it comes,” laughed Block, who recovered from his miscue and finished with a second-round 70.

After an equally impressive 70 in hellish conditions Saturday, he was asked how he stayed grounded: “Stay down to earth? Hmm. Have you met my wife?” he deadpanned.

And on Sunday following a magical final round he put the perfect words to the emotional picture.

“I didn't cry when I had my kids. I cried [today], for some reason. If you love golf, you know. I cry about golf, to be honest,” said Block, who tied for 15^th to secure himself a spot in next year’s PGA Championship. “I have cried only a couple times in my life. When I won the [PGA Club Pro] national championship in 2014 in Myrtle Beach. At The Dunes Club I cried. And after that, my wife hasn't seen me cry until this week.

“If it makes any sense, the one thing in the world that makes me cry is golf. If that puts into context as far as how much I love the game, you know now. It's everything to me.”

Koepka was the champion, McIlroy the sentimental favorite thanks to his ties to the area, but Block was the ultimate Cinderella story. He was greeted with a raucous ovation on the first tee, cheered along the way even when he bogeyed Nos. 1 and 7, and when his tee shot crashed into the hole at the par-3 15^th, the entire course erupted in celebration.

Block, who didn’t see his tee shot go into the hole, was initially confused.

“I hit it, and it's just right at it, but I can't see it, and all of the sudden it disappears, whatever. I'm like, cool. I'm like, thanks, guys. Rory is walking down the pathway 20 yards away from me and turns around and starts walking back towards me with his arms open to give me a hug. And he goes, “you made it,” Block explained. “I go, what? I'm like, seriously?”

McIlroy was more than happy to celebrate the moment with Block and a few thousand of their closest friends. At the highest level the game can become insular and cold, so when given the chance the Northern Irishman easily embraced Block’s story.

“It was an amazing golf shot,” McIlroy said. “That hole has sort of given me fits all week. I haven't really liked the look of it, and Michael stands up and hits this lovely little draw back into off the left wind, and you know, ball goes straight in the hole. It was I guess sort of when it's your week, it's your week in a way, and you know, I think with the way the week's went for him, it was a fitting way to cap off his PGA Championship.”

Actually, Block capped off his week with tears of joy and appreciation for a “dream come true.”

Fans won't have to wait long to watch the next chapter of Michael Block's fairytale unfold.

After finishing T-15 at the PGA Championship and becoming the darling of the tournament, the PGA professional received a sponsor's invite to play in next week's Charles Schwab Challenge.

"Don't tell me what you're gonna tell me, because if you tell me, I'm gonna start crying right now," Block said when tournament director Michael Tothe called him on Sunday evening.

"There's no better person for this last exemption to go to than you," Tothe told Block as the 46-year-old and his wife became visibly emotional.

"Someone once told me that Colonial sets up pretty good for an old pro like me, so thank you so much... I look forward to transferring my [plane] tickets to Fort Worth-Dallas tomorrow," Block said in response.

It might not be his only Tour start, either. Later Sunday night, the RBC Canadian Open offered Block a spot in its field via its Twitter account (no word yet on an acceptance).

Block won the low PGA professional on Sunday evening after a storybook week that saw him notch the best finish by a PGA professional at the PGA Championship in 35 years. He also had a slam-dunk hole-in-one on the par-3 15th in the final round while playing alongside Rory McIlroy. He followed it up with a stellar up-and-down for par to book his ticket to the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla.

Block won $288,333.33 with his T-15 finish at Oak Hill. Prior to Sunday, the largest check he had ever won was $75,000 after besting the field at the 2014 PGA Professional Championship.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – As Mississippi State orchestrated a furious back-nine charge late Sunday evening at Grayhawk Golf Club, the Bulldog players didn’t just feel it; they could hear it.

Woof! Woof! Woof!

“When you start hearing Chuck Daniel barking,” head coach Charlie Ewing says, “then you know what’s going on.”

That would be Chuck Daniel, former Mississippi State baseball player and dad of current Bulldogs senior Abbey Daniel, who with her team a few shots outside the cut line stuffed her approach shot to 6 inches at the par-4 penultimate hole. The birdie moved Mississippi State to 20 over, two shots back of San Jose State, which had just played the par-5 finishing hole in a bogey-free 3 under and figured it had just earned, by one shot over Baylor, the 15^th and final berth into Monday’s final round of stroke play at the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship.

But up on the next tee, Bulldogs freshman Izzy Pellot saw Daniel had a tap-in birdie – and heard the barks – and then after finding the fairway, she stuck a 6-iron from 186 yards to 8 feet and rolled in a huge eagle putt. Tied.

Daniel and sophomore Julia Lopez Ramirez would add birdies – Daniel at No. 18 and Ramirez at No. 17 – and the fifth-ranked Bulldogs, which beat just three of the 30 teams in the field in Friday’s first round, made the 54-hole cut by two shots. With its four counters 8 under on the back nine Sunday, Mississippi State climbed eight spots on the leaderboard to 14^th place at 16 over, 11 shots back of a two-way tied for seventh held by Arizona and Texas A&M.

The top eight teams after Monday advance to match play.

(Stanford leads Wake Forest and Texas by seven shots at 13 under. USC, Florida State and South Carolina round out the top six.)

“It’s been a heckuva few days,” Ewing said. “This is where you feel really grateful that you’re playing a 72-hole tournament instead of a 54-hole tournament. We’ve still got time, we’ve still got holes left. That first round you leave here thinking, was that one of our worst rounds of the year? Not a great time to have it. And then we probably just had one of our best back nines of the year at a time when we really, really needed it. … The whole day tomorrow is going to have to look a lot like the back nine today, but we’re grateful for the opportunity for sure.”

Ewing said his team is not focused on what it needs to shoot on Monday to qualify for match play for the first time in program history. Instead, the Bulldogs are focused on, well, doing just that: staying focused on what they can control.

“We’re not looking at scores or what number we have to get to,” Ewing added. “It’s just a matter of let’s focus, let’s stick with our recipe, play the best round that we possibly can. If we execute that at a really high level, we feel we have a great opportunity to continue playing on Tuesday.”

Shortly after keeping their season alive, Mississippi State’s players headed down to the lake that sits between the 10^th and 18^th holes to feed some ducks.

Ewing hopes his Bulldogs will be able to feed off their Sunday finish.

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – They were coming for Brooks Koepka’s throne again.

And, OK, lately, a fortunate few had even succeeded in supplanting him. The tough talk that backfired at Harding Park. The 50-year-old who taught him a lesson at Kiawah. The new world No. 1 who rumbled right through him at Augusta.

But that was only temporary. Now was Koepka’s time to resume his rightful position atop the major hierarchy.

Viktor Hovland had fought gamely throughout the final round of this PGA Championship, but the Norwegian’s tee shot on the 16th hole drifted too far right and found the fairway bunker. Needing to stay aggressive, he instead got too greedy with a 9-iron and didn’t clear the lip, his ball plunging into the grass above the bunker and dooming his chances.

“Congratulations, Brooks!” someone yelled.

But Koepka’s expression never changed. He just stood there, one foot crossed in front of the other, hand on his hip. Stoic, calm, confident. Typically, he abhors slow play, even publicly rails against it, but this was a delay he didn’t seem to mind. Another contender had faltered. In his experience, at least, they almost always do.

As the sport tries to identify the preeminent player of the post-Tiger era, Koepka has proven to be up to the task, historically great. Entering the final round at Oak Hill, he was 3-for-4 when staked to a 54-hole lead in a major – a smaller sample size than Woods’ eye-popping closing rate, but nonetheless impressive. 

Koepka knows that not everyone is built for these fraught moments. That legacies are at stake. At the end of a career, no one will remember how many tournaments on tropical islands a player won. It’s majors or bust, and Koepka, rebuilt and refocused, was keen to become the 20th player all-time with at least five of ’em.

And so, after Hovland hacked out down the fairway, Koepka needed just 15 seconds to step into his shot, glance one last time at the flag and then – whoosh – slash through the thick rough, his ball landing on the front edge of the green and trundling within 3 feet of the cup for one last macho birdie.

Ball game.

“He has five majors,” Hovland said, “and that’s a hell of a record. It’s not easy going to toe-to-toe with a guy like that.”

With his alpha energy and jock swagger, it’s natural to think of Koepka as a singular talent – and, sure, he was the one posing for pictures with the Wanamaker Trophy after a two-shot victory. But during the walk from the 18th green to the scoring tent, the enormity of the moment hit him.

What was he thinking?

“Pardon my language,” he said Sunday night, “but it’s all the f---ing s--t I had to go through. No one knows. No one knows all the pain.

“So, yeah, it felt good. It felt really good.”

Not just for Koepka, the major king.

But for everyone who helped return him there.

To those who know him best, Koepka’s controversial move to LIV last year wasn’t the most shocking transaction of the summer.

It was that he re-hired Claude Harmon III as his swing coach.

“Never in a million years did I think that’d happen,” Harmon said late Sunday on the putting green.

Koepka had tried to reunite a year earlier, but Harmon rejected the offer. It was too soon. Their split was too nasty, too painful, fueled in large part by Harmon’s other pupil, Dustin Johnson, becoming a world-beater in the summer of 2020. 

But last July, Koepka was growing increasingly desperate. He’d bolted for the rival league, his body was breaking down, and his swing was in disarray. In a practice round at the LIV Bedminster event, Harmon thought he’d never seen him play worse. After the second round, Koepka swallowed his pride and finally asked for help. 

“I still feel like I have a lot of great golf left,” he told Harmon. “I still feel like I can win major championships.”

That unshakeable self-belief was at odds with the narratives swirling around Koepka. In the Netflix documentary released earlier this year, big, bad Brooks was portrayed in an entirely new light: open and fragile and vulnerable, contemplating his career mortality. But there’s an important distinction to be made, Harmon said. When Koepka confided to his inner circle that he “can’t compete with these guys” anymore, he wasn’t talking about the quality of his game. He was talking about his brittle body. With his future uncertain, and with a reported nine-figure check on the table, Koepka made a business decision and left behind the PGA Tour.

“And so if there’s narrative that he doesn’t give a s--t anymore, then why is he hiring me?” Harmon said. “Why does he have this giant team of people around him? If he’s just gonna phone all this in and go sit around with [wife] Jena on a f--king yacht? Because that’s what everyone was saying.”

Harmon views it as a double standard that exists only in pro golf: Will Lamar Jackson not strive to take the Ravens to the Super Bowl because he just signed a contract with $185 million guaranteed?

“Those other guys got the bag, and nobody bats an eye,” Harmon said. “So why is it different with Brooks?”

In Koepka’s new professional home, not much has changed with their working relationship. For eight years together, he and Harmon focused on the same three things: ball position forward, making sure the backswing stays in front of his body, and keeping the downswing in front of him. No one makes sexy Instagram videos about grip, stance, posture and alignment, but various injuries had torpedoed Koepka’s fundamentals. Within four months of working together, Koepka was a winner again in Saudi Arabia. At his first major since the rebuild, he was the 54-hole leader at the Masters. The next time he was in that heady position, he won.

“He’s just a really good golfer,” Harmon said. “He likes it being messy and being dirty – he likes major championships. He likes climbing Mt. Everest and being in the ‘death zone.’ Everyone says they like being up there. But you gotta step over dead bodies to get to the top, and you gotta step over dead bodies to get back down.”

After major No. 5, Harmon could only chuckle at a memory from a long-ago PGA. At Valhalla in 2014, Harmon was standing on the first tee with Koepka and Jonas Blixt when Tom Watson approached. Watson, that year’s Ryder Cup captain, was looking for Harris English, to no avail. So he decided to play a few holes with the guys until he could locate English out on the course. 

As they walked down the first fairway, Watson asked Koepka: “So, which club do you play out of?” 

He thought Koepka was a club pro.

Now he has five majors – just the seventh player to earn that haul by the age of 34.

“We’re in different territory now,” Harmon said. 

Rarefied air.

On Saturday night, Koepka warned us that this final round would be different.

At the Masters, he held a four-shot lead with 29 holes to play before getting run over by Jon Rahm on a marathon Sunday at Augusta National. It was Koepka’s first blown 54-hole lead in a major, and the loss was so devastating that he didn’t sleep that night. His best friend tore into him. He later admitted that he choked. But he also promised a different mentality as he sat on a one-shot lead here at Oak Hill.

“I know what I did,” he said Saturday night. “I won’t show up like that tomorrow.”

Koepka never revealed exactly what happened at Augusta, or what he thought during the few hours between the end of this third round and the start of the final one.

“I can’t give away all the secrets,” he said. 

But Pete Cowen was among those in whom Koepka confided. They talked the night after the collapse.

“When he said that, he was saying: I almost tried not to lose it,” Cowen said. “Which is a total mistake. They’re only going to come at you.

“With situations like that, you’ve got to tread on the guy’s neck and say, I’m going down there, are you going with me?” Cowen continued. “He didn’t do that. He almost tried to stay too level.”

Just as Harmon has honed Koepka’s full swing, and Jeff Pierce has sharpened Koepka’s putting stroke, Cowen has played a critical role in Koepka’s resurgence. He’s equal parts short-game coach, psychologist and unapologetic truth-teller. Before the 2017 U.S. Open, Cowen gave Koepka an epic tongue-lashing about his woebegone attitude – and it propelled the mega-talent to his first major title and kick-started this epic run of dominance. That Erin Hills flag remains the only one that Cowen keeps in his collection. It came with a personalized message from Koepka: “Thanks for the bollocking! I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Cowen threatened another scolding the week before the Masters last month, but Koepka told him not to bother. That he could lock in himself. Koepka won the LIV Orlando event and then nearly slipped into the green jacket, too. That week Cowen was most pleased because Koepka had made him feel “obsolete” as a coach.

“That’s what I want,” he said, “and that’s where he is at the moment.” 

No pep talk is the same. The message delivered when Koepka was down and out, injured and broken, was different than the one when he was on top of the world. But Cowen's unique talents were needed once again on Sunday afternoon, when Koepka went through an iffy range session at Oak Hill and began to fret.

“I had to talk him down off the ledge again,” Cowen said.

Koepka didn’t “feel it at all this week” with his swing; he opened with 72 and said it was the worst he’d struck it in months. Even after following it up with consecutive rounds of 66 – the low score of the day, both rounds – it was clear to his team that he didn’t quite have his best stuff.

“But what he’s relating it to is perfection,” Cowen said. “I told him, ‘You only have to be 70% to win at this.’ He thinks you’ve got to be 90%. That was the problem with Henrik Stenson – he thought he could only win with 100%. That’s why he didn’t win as many as he should. 

“But at least with Brooks he sees that now. He’s managed to win before when he hasn’t had his A-game, and so this time, he’s like, I can do that again.”

The messy warmup served to sharpen Koepka’s focus. Across the first four holes, he didn’t hit an approach shot outside of 16 feet. He ripped off three birdies in that stretch, extending a lead that he never fully relinquished. In all, he made seven birdies on his way to a 67.

“Sometimes I just have to help him realize just how good he really is,” Cowen said. “I said, ‘Who is going to beat you? If you allow them to beat you, they will. But if you don’t, they won’t.’ I told him how good he is, and he did the rest.”

When Koepka suffered a career-threatening knee injury in March 2021, the only person who accompanied him to Los Angeles for the surgery and rehabilitation was caddie Ricky Elliott.

“I feel bad for him that he was stuck with me there for a while,” Koepka said. “He was tired of me; I was tired of him. I don’t know if he gets enough credit for being as good of a caddie as he is.”

But to Elliott, at least, this has never been a typical player-caddie relationship. He considers Koepka a little brother. With no family here in the States, the Northern Irishman has become tight with all of the Koepkas: Brooks’ wife Jena, as well as his parents, brother and stepmom.

“They’re like a second family to me,” Elliott said.

And so when Koepka phoned to tell Elliott that he needed him in L.A., that he wanted to be with him as he began the grueling recovery from a dislocated right kneecap and other ligament damage, Elliott didn’t think twice about spending two-and-a-half weeks across the country.

“I’ve been around and knew how low he was,” Elliott said. “I’ve been to the highest points and the lowest points, and it’s just golf, isn’t it?”

Elliott was with Koepka from the start, a decade ago, when the former Florida State product, after flaming out at Q-School, went across the pond to try his luck on the European Challenge Tour. They traveled the world, grew close and learned how to win, together.

A few years after being confused for a club pro, Koepka announced his arrival at Erin Hills, then ticked off three victories in his next five majors. “He won his first and was climbing the ladder,” Elliott said, “and then it goes bang, bang, bang. But now, he’s suddenly going against guys who are 10 years younger. Half these guys have never even seen him win a major. And so he has to prove it to them, too.”

There’s a revealing moment in the Netflix docuseries when Koepka tried to reconcile his current fragility with his past glory.

“I go back to the first major I ever won,” he said then, “and I’d pay back every dollar I’ve ever made just to have that feeling again for another hour.” 

Lugging the bag toward Oak Hill’s clubhouse on Sunday night, Elliott could relate to that sentiment.

“I didn’t know whether he’d ever be able to do it again, and I think this will be the most special one he’s won,” Elliott said. “I don’t really have any feelings right now, any words. It’s just incredible. This is it. This is it right here.”

The final part of Koepka’s reclamation was arguably the most important.

Harmon mentioned it.

So did Cowen.

Elliott, too.

It’s Koepka’s training and physical therapy staff: Andrew Cummings, Marc Wahl, Ara Suppiah. It’s the behind-the-scenes crew that helped put the shattered “Glass Man,” as Elliott calls him, back together.

Cummings, who runs the AC Sports Performance Lab in Jupiter, Florida, received a call from Koepka in late November. More than a year-and-a-half after his horrific knee injury, Koepka still wasn’t moving how he wanted. The growing list of injuries had forced him to make other compensations – and at 32, frankly, he was too young to be feeling this old. The ailing star needed help.

“He’d been through a lot,” Cummings said. “We had a very low baseline and a lot of work that needed to be done.”

The first priority for the trainer was strengthening Koepka’s right knee. 

“It’s everything in his golf swing,” Cummings said. “If he can’t push off that right side, that’s his M.O. We needed to get it as healthy and strong and stable as possible, to not only allow him to do daily activities without pain but compete at the highest level and get it to a point where he doesn’t even think about it and has confidence in it.”

How they accomplished that remains within the team – “Some of that is the secret sauce we’ll keep,” Cummings said – but within two months Koepka already noticed a difference.

Some of the gains were apparent visually. He shed weight. The knee showed less inflammation. His movement quality in the gym was better.

But mentally, Cummings said, “I’ve never had the opportunity to work with an athlete like him. The dude has a different gear than anyone I’ve ever seen. His strength, his speed, his power is all great. But the biggest thing is his resilience. That was all him.”

Cummings and Koepka meet six days a week at home, oftentimes at 6 a.m. With the late tee time Sunday, they didn’t start pushing weight until 8:30. All three members of the team work in concert, following the same game plan, with the same goals. 

“It’s night and day compared to when we first started,” Cummings said. “He’s not even the same person. And when this guy is healthy, he’s able to do what he does best – and that’s win golf tournaments.”

Said Koepka: “They don’t get enough credit, but they have definitely revived my career. They did a great job, and I wouldn’t be here without them.” 

And so what can Koepka accomplish now that his brittle body has been restored to near-full health?

Cummings smiled.

“This is the start of another run.”

In the immediate aftermath, there was so much to digest. 

What Koepka’s win means for his place among the game’s all-time greats. 

What it means in the larger Tour-LIV culture war.

What it means for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. (He’s up to No. 2 in the standings.) 

But for Koepka, standing behind the podium in the interview area, this wasn’t the time nor the place for those conversations.

He’s vaguely aware of the historical implications … but he’s just trying to add to his collection. 

He knows this will be used as validation for the entire LIV model … but he’s more focused on his personal achievement. 

He knows it increases the likelihood of another Ryder Cup appearance … but all along he just wanted to make the decision difficult on American captain Zach Johnson.

No, in this moment, he was more interested in reflection. In shouting out the people around him, the team that never wavered, never bailed, never stopped supporting him. Only a handful of people know the depths that Koepka has explored over the past few years – the pain, the recovery, the uncertainty – and now they could share in his unbridled joy, too. A 27-pound trophy that was lifted together. 

“It feels damn good,” he said.

For everyone involved.