TEEING OFF: BRENDAN JAMES
THERE was a time not so very long ago when attending a Brooks Koepka press conference was unlikely to give golf scribes little more than “yeah, just taking one round at a time” or “just keep doing what I’m doing.”
What a difference three major championship victories can make ... Koepka is unique on the PGA Tour. The big-hitting American played his way onto the world’s biggest golfing stage via Europe. He graduated college and went straight onto the secondary Challenge Tour. Three wins on that Tour in 2013 saw him gain a promotion to the main European Tour where he continued to play full time through to the end of 2014 and was named the Rookie of the Year. In 2015, he headed home to the PGA Tour and won in his first start as a full time member.
There have been six wins since including back-to-back US Opens (2017-18) and the 2018 PGA Championship. It has been a hard, but fruitful, road to reach No.2 in the world ranking but he now has an authoritative voice. This has made press numbers at his media conferences swell as we learn he’s got more to give than most pros. He’s become a voice of common sense in a game that often lacks such a thing in spades. He has an opinion and he’s not afraid to take warranted shots at his Tour colleagues when he feels it’s necessary. What a breath of fresh air!
His recent sojourn to the Middle East saw him tee it up in the controversial Saudi International after banking some serious coin for attending. He managed to get through the week without being asked his motives for posing back to camera in a G-string and posting the image on Instagram. But when it came to golf and some of the burning topics in the game he was free-flowing. First cab off the rank was slow play and an obvious shot in the direction of fellow Ryder Cupper Bryson DeChambeau, who came under fire for his pace of play doing yardages en route to victory in the previous week’s Dubai Desert Classic.
“I just don’t understand how it takes a minute and 20 seconds, a minute and 15 to hit a golf ball; it’s not that hard,” Koepka told UK Golf Monthly’s podcast. “It’s always between two clubs; there’s a miss short, there’s a miss long. It really drives me nuts, especially when it’s a long hitter, because you know you’ve got two other guys or at least one guy that’s hitting before you so you can do all your calculations; you should have your numbers.
“Obviously if you’re the first guy you might take 10 extra seconds, but it doesn’t take that long to hit the ball, especially if it’s not blowing 30,” Koepka said. “If it’s blowing 30, I understand taking a minute and taking some extra time with some gusts, you know changing just slightly, I get that, but if it’s a calm day there’s no excuse.” And he added: “Guys are already so slow it’s kind of embarrassing. I just don’t get why you enforce some things and don’t enforce others,” making a reference to the penalty enforced on Haotong Li in the same tournament for having allegedly having his caddie line him up during his pre-shot routine.
After the event, it was Sergio Garcia’s turn to get some Koepka treatment … and quite rightly too after the Spaniard was disqualified from the tournament for damaging at least five greens and losing his cool in a bunker during the third round.
“To act like a child out there is not cool. It’s not setting a good example and it’s not cool to us, showing us no respect or anybody else,” Koepka told the Playing Through podcast.
“That’s just Sergio acting like a child,” said Koepka, who finished tied for 57th in the event. “It’s unfortunate that he’s got to do that and complain. Everybody’s got to play the same golf course. I didn’t play very good, but you didn’t really see anybody else doing that. You’re 40 years old, so you gotta grow up eventually.” Any more stuff like this Brooks and they’ll have to start selling tickets to your media conferences.