RIDGELAND, S.C. – Brooks Koepka doesn’t think his public spat with Bryson DeChambeau will disrupt team chemistry and cause any damaging tension come Ryder Cup time if both are wearing the red, white and blue.
No, the friction between the top-10 players in the world that has played out on social media won’t lead U.S. captain Steve Stricker to start pulling out his hair or asking one of his vice captains to make sure the two are in separate corners in September at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
“I don’t see why it would,” the four-time major champion said Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s start in the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. “There’s only eight guys that are playing, four guys are sitting. I play with one other guy. I don’t understand (why it would matter).
“Let’s say I don’t play with Bryson or Bryson doesn’t play with me; he takes care of his match, and I would take care of my match, and I don’t know how that has any effect. What you do off the golf course doesn’t have any effect on the golf course.”
The back and forth between world No. 8 Koepka and No. 5 DeChambeau has been going on for some time now but escalated rather quickly at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island last month, i.e. the infamous Koepka eyeroll.
Its crescendo – for now – came last week in the Memorial at Muirfield Village in Ohio, when Koepka wasn’t even playing. DeChambeau was playing, however, and he was repeatedly heckled by pro-Brooks fans who were calling DeChambeau “Brooksie.” A few fans were removed from the tournament (not at the request of DeChambeau) and Koepka later put out a video offering free beer to anyone whose day was cut short because of their taunts.
Capping off a long day with @MichelobULTRA! Thanks for all the support today. Also, we’ve got something for you… pic.twitter.com/kwtwXg3Kqb
— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) June 4, 2021
Koepka told Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch that he wasn’t condoning disrespectful to inappropriate behavior by offering the beer. Some people in golf’s circles think Koepka crossed the line and was being a bully in cyberspace. Others are put off with the quarrel. As for Koepka, he thinks it’s good for the game.
“I really do. The fact that golf’s on pretty much every news outlet for about two weeks pretty consistently, I think that’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s growing the game. I get the traditionalists who don’t agree with it. I understand that, but I think to grow the game you’ve got to reach out to the younger generation. I don’t want to say that’s what this is, but it’s reaching out to a whole bunch of people. It’s getting golf in front of people. I think it’s good for the game.”
At the PGA, Koepka was doing an interview Friday when he was clearly thrown off by the sound – and likely sight – of DeChambeau. He rolled his eyes, lost his train of thought and dropped a few expletives. The video was not supposed to see the light of day but somehow reached social media circles and quickly went viral before it was removed.
“It doesn’t bother me, honestly,” Koepka said when asked if the video’s release upset him. “I’m OK with anything I do. I don’t really live with regrets. It’s nothing I’m terribly upset about. From everybody I spoke to, it is what it is and move on.
“He didn’t say anything to me. He wasn’t speaking to me. He was saying something about how he hit a perfect shot and it shouldn’t have been there, and it was just very, very loud. With the media right there, you kind of know, hey, look, we’re all kind of in this area, just tone it down, and it was just so loud. Then I think he realized that he had gotten right behind me, and he toned it down a little bit, but I just lost my train of thought, which I think was pretty obvious.”
While he struggled with his surgically repaired right knee but managed to finish in a tie for second behind Wanamaker Trophy winner Phil Mickelson. During his off time the past two weeks, Koepka said the knee has improved.
“It feels probably better than ever,” he said. “Doing kind of a quad stretch. My foot can kind of touch my butt for the first time, so the knee is months and months ahead of schedule. It feels really good, just being able to do work, doing some Pilates, just started that. I think a lot of this has really helped. I know Dr. (Neal) ElAttrache is very pleased, Mark Wall, physio. Everyone is very happy.
“I’m playing good. I like the way everything’s been going. My body’s getting better and better every day, feeling more comfortable doing things on the golf course that maybe I couldn’t do from Augusta to PGA. It’s just getting better and better every day. So I’m very pleased and like my chances.”
Brooks Koepka on the 17th green during the first round of the Masters. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
That goes for this week and at next week’s U.S. Open, which he won in 2017 at Erin Hills and 2018 at Shinnicock.
“I like playing before the U.S. Open, and I’m under repped this whole year. I haven’t played much,” said Koepka, who has finished just 24 competitive rounds in 2021 (he won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February). “The big thing is just getting big reps under my belt. I felt like I played good at Kiawah. I liked the way I played, putted iffy, didn’t putt too well, but it’s one of those things where I felt like maybe if I had a few more rounds kind of going through the year and was a little more comfortable, it might have been, I guess maybe easier for me.
“So that’s part of the reason why I wanted to play this week. I need to play. I haven’t played enough out here to really feel like, hey, man, I’ve got this shot. I feel comfortable with everything we’re working on, and now that the knee’s not really an issue anymore, it’s getting a lot freer and able to hit golf shots and read putts, get down there fully without bigger effort to get down to read it.”
from Golfweek https://ift.tt/3gcR20V