WATCH: Brooks Koepka's ball makes unlucky contact with pin, ends up on the fringe during the final round of the 2024 PGA Championship

Brooks Koepka is capable of hitting a golf ball precisely where he wants it to go. This has been proven over his illustrious career, which includes a win at the 2023 PGA Championship. In trying to defend his title, he hit a ball precisely where he wanted to, but it took a terribly unlucky bounce and made life difficult once more.

Koepka lobbed a ball towards the flag on the seventh hole during the fourth and final round. It was struck perfectly, as it lined up directly with the hole and would have made for an easy putt if not for the flag itself.

The ball clanged off of the pin that the flag stands on and caromed away from the hole. If it hadn't been for that flag and pin, the ball likely would have landed within a few feet for an easy putt. Instead, it left the reigning champ with a difficult putt from the fringe.

Check it out below:

Koepka is as accurate as they come, but this time he was a little bit too accurate. Even the announcers couldn't believe how unfortunate that was. If the ball was struck just a hair to the left or right, it would have been one of the top shots of the tournament. Instead, it left the LIV Golf star with a tough lie.

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Can Brooks Koepka defend his PGA Championship title?

Brooks Koepka came into Valhalla as the reigning champion. The golfer won the tournament in 2023 and was looking to be the first back-to-back winner of any Major since he won two consecutive U.S. Opens in 2017 and 2018.

Brooks Koepka has an uphill battle at the PGA Championship

Unfortunately, some other golfers had other plans. Brooks Koepka didn't struggle per se (he was seven under at the time of writing) but a few others had terrific outings. In round one, Xander Schauffele shot a record-tying nine under. Shane Lowry did the same in the third round.

Additionally, Sahith Theegala, Collin Morikawa, Koepka's LIV mate Bryson DeChambeau, Viktor Hovland, and several others were playing excellently into the fourth round. That makes any sort of comeback difficult to imagine, as the reigning champion is currently eight back of the lead.

Koepka is also currently through nine holes, meaning he'd have to birdie every single one of the remaining holes to take the lead, and then he'd have to hope that no one at the top of the leaderboard shaves any strokes off their score in round four.

It's very rare to repeat as Major winner, as Koepka knows from his time doing it. He didn't have a terrible outing, but it just wasn't on par with last year's performance and thus is unlikely to yield him another trophy.