Following a breakout season that included a pair of major victories, Brooks Koepka has been named the 2018 PGA Tour Player of the Year.

Koepka started the year on the disabled list, missing four months of action including the Masters because of a wrist injury. But he returned better than ever, becoming the first player to successfully defend a U.S. Open title since Curtis Strange in 1989 and adding a PGA Championship win over Tiger Woods in August.

Koepka received the award based on voting from other Tour members in a balloting process that ended Oct. 1.

"Brooks has brought a new brand of athleticism to the PGA Tour, and we saw the results this year with his historic season at the major championships and a top-10 finish in the FedExCup," Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a release. "These feats were accomplished despite missing significant time due to injury, a testament to his work ethic and perseverance throughout the season."

Koepka became the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same season, and the first to do so since Woods in 2000. He was chosen over a group of finalists that included Francesco Molinari, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau.

Justin Rose has a lot on his plate this week at the British Masters.

The tournament host also has a chance to return to world No. 1.

Rose’s stay atop the world rankings lasted only two weeks, after Dustin Johnson supplanted him at the Tour Championship. To return to the top spot, the newly minted FedExCup champion needs to finish no worse than a two-way tie for second at Walton Heath.

Rose is a former British Masters champion, back in 2002. He will host this year’s tournament, after Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood held that role over the past few years.

Rose hasn’t won since May but he’s been red-hot of late, with three consecutive top-4 finishes to close out the recent PGA Tour season.

For the second time in less than three months, Jhonattan Vegas' schedule has been impacted by a paperwork issue.

The Venezuela native nearly missed The Open because of an expired visa, making it to Carnoustie via helicopter just minutes before his opening-round tee time. But there will be no last-minute theatrics this time around, as Vegas' passport has nearly expired and issues in his homeland have made renewal difficult. As a result, he opted to withdraw from this week's CIMB Classic in Malaysia:

Súper disappointed not going to @CIMBClassic this week in Malaysia due to my passport expiring in a 2 months. Unfortunately my country is having some horrible issues and renewing your passport is one of them. Thanks everyone @CIMBClassic for trying to make this happen.

— Jhonattan Vegas (@JhonattanVegas) October 8, 2018

Vegas was replaced in the 78-man field by Sam Ryder, who missed a playoff at the season-opening Safeway Open by a single shot. Vegas finished T-53 last week in Napa, his first start since missing the cut at the Dell Technologies Championship.

Vegas finished 95th in last season's FedExCup standings, and that position is unlikely to earn him a spot in next week's CJ Cup at Nine Bridges in South Korea. Vegas is expected to play next month in Australia, when he teams with Joseph Naffah to represent Venezuela in the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf.

After claiming a pair of majors in 2018, Brooks Koepka was a logical and deserving winner of the PGA Tour's Player of the Year award, as announced by the Tour on Tuesday. He just didn't benefit from a vote for himself.

Koepka successfully defended his U.S. Open title in June, then added the PGA Championship in August to become the first player to win both events in the same year since Tiger Woods in 2000. But in an interview with the Dan Patrick Show, Koepka explained that he didn't bother to vote for the award, which was open for voting by all Tour players between Sept. 24-Oct. 1.

"I actually, I was too lazy. I didn't vote," Koepka said. "I don't know, I would never vote for myself. I just couldn't do it."

Koepka received the award over a group of finalists that included world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, FedExCup champ Justin Rose, Open champ Francesco Molinari, reigning Player of the Year Justin Thomas and three-time winner Bryson DeChambeau.

In Koepka's defense, the tight voting window coincided with a busy part of his schedule as he and the other members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team were toiling away in France. But given a mulligan, Koepka believes he would have likely voted for DeChambeau, whose breakout season included victories at each of the first two playoff events.

"Maybe the way Bryson came on as of late. If not, maybe Dustin," Koepka said. "One of those guys is who I would've voted for. Next year, I'm going to vote."

Shortly after he was named PGA Tour Player of the Year for 2018, Brooks Koepka once again refuted the notion that there was any sort of incident between him and Dustin Johnson at the Ryder Cup.

Koepka and Johnson came into the crosshairs of the post-Paris fallout when a report from the U.K. Telegraph cited multiple witnesses that the two men nearly came to blows and had to be separated while visiting the European team room after play concluded at Le Golf National. Koepka flatly denied that anything happened when speaking to reporters last week at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and he stood by his explanation Tuesday in an interview with the Dan Patrick Show.

"I don't know how (the report) started. I have no idea," Koepka said. "I was texting with (Johnson) before I even knew the story existed. We chatted a few times during the week as we normally would, and I saw him this morning. The 20 people that were here can vouch for me that there's nothing there. We don't get it. We've laughed about it."

Speaking in an interview with Golf Channel insider Tim Rosaforte over the weekend, U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk denied that there was any lingering impact - but seemed to imply that some sort of incident, however minor, did actually occur between the two friends who have combined to win the last three U.S. Open titles.

"Whatever altercation started, or whatever happened, it was very brief, it was very short. Neither one of them really took anything out of it. In fact, they both hopped in a cab not long after that and went out together for a little while, woke up in the morning like nothing happened," Furyk said. "They're like brothers. Brothers may argue, brothers get into it. But they're as close as they've ever been and it really had no effect on either one of them."

While his captain left the door open to the notion that there was some sort of incident, Koepka denied the report for a second time while chalking it up to a possible mis-interpretation of a conversation the two men were having.

"I mean, we talk about everything. We could have been talking about college football and how bad Florida State was. It could have been one of those things where I'm like, 'Dude, we're not that bad,'" Koepka said. "You never know what somebody heard. Sometimes you jump in the middle of a conversation and you have no idea what's going on. You just hear a certain part of it, but it's not always the case.

"I don't know what they think they saw, or what they think they heard, but it was far from the truth."