Brooks Koepka Is Here for Brooks Koepka, and He’s Dominating the Masters

The four-time major champ, now with LIV Golf, doesn’t even seem to love golf, but he loves the opportunity to win again on the game’s biggest stages.

Even though he plays an individual sport, Brooks Koepka has always stood out as playing for himself. He might be the only golfer in history who impressed Tiger Woods and didn’t seem to care. So what we are witnessing at Augusta National this week is distinctly Koepka: a breezy 65 followed by an easy 67, all from a golfer who cashes LIV Golf’s checks but won’t wave its flag.

Koepka left the PGA Tour last summer shortly after unequivocally stating publicly and privately that he would stay. When Rory McIlroy ripped golfers for “duplicitous” behavior, he sure seemed to mean Koepka. Maybe Koepka lied, maybe LIV upped its offer and maybe he gave it the same 10 minutes of thought he seems to give most things in his golf life. But here he was Friday, with a chance to help Greg Norman pound his chest, and Koepka said if he knew then what he knows now, he might never have left.

He worried, at the time, that his injured right knee would end his career. Had he been healthy, would the decision have been more challenging?

“Honestly, yeah, probably—if I’m being completely honest,” Koepka said. “I think it would have been. But I’m happy with the decision I made.”

If he is happy, it’s because he got paid a ton and it hasn’t hurt his career. Some LIV players wore their LIV logos this week; Koepka wore Nike like he always has and if pressed, might not even remember the name of his LIV team. When he was asked about stars like fellow Jupiter, Fla., residents McIlroy and Justin Thomas, he said he sees them all the time, so “It’s just competitively where you miss playing against them. That’s one thing I do miss.” It was an implicit admission that LIV competition is not nearly as stiff, which is both obvious and something LIV wants players to deny.

Other LIV players spew nonsense about “growing the game,” but why would Koepka say he wants to spread the gospel of a sport he claims not to love so much himself? He said Friday that if he had been forced to retire, he might play twice a month at most.

Koepka’s LIV decision was a hard one to peg, because he is so unlike other great players. He bristled when he didn’t get respect but didn’t seem to care when he did. He prides himself on being one of the best players in the world, and so he belongs on the PGA Tour, but always had a hard time getting excited for regular PGA Tour events and his record shows it.

Every star who took millions from the Saudi Arabian royal family made a morally indefensible deal with a murderous regime. That includes Koepka. But there is a reason that while most LIV players here quickly played themselves out of contention this week, Koepka shot to the top of the leaderboard and stayed there. In 2023, as in ’19, Koepka doesn’t care much about whatever tour he is playing on, his recent results (though he did win LIV’s last event) or his world ranking.

He loves competition more than the game. He said when he left Augusta National after missing last year’s cut, “I’m pretty sure I tried to break the back window with my fist—the back window of my car. Not once but twice. … I guess Mercedes makes a pretty good back window.” He was frustrated his body had betrayed him. Now he is healthy, and while he was lucky enough to play in near-perfect scoring conditions in the first two rounds, he still had to take advantage of them. He assumed he would, and he did. The man who once won four majors in eight starts still shows up to majors expecting to win.

Toward the end of Koepka’s peak—or maybe that was his first peak—his act grew tired, and his feud with Bryson DeChambeau made him seem like a bully. It was unfortunate, because Koepka is much smarter and more personable than he made himself seem. Then he got hurt, and like DeChambeau, who has dealt with a wrist injury, that might have contributed to his decision to join LIV.

DeChambeau and Koepka have drastically different personalities and interests. Bryson acts like the game is so complicated; only he really understands it. Brooks has said it’s so simple that he barely practices—an exaggeration for effect, but a revealing one. Bryson prefers the lab of the range to the entropy on the course—which has helped him hone his swing but hurt him on the course. Brooks prefers the intensity of a major championship to the tedium that goes into preparing for one. Bryson is a nerd who wants to seem cool. Brooks was born cool.

To Koepka, any controversy is like a piece of toilet paper stuck to his shoe that everybody else sees, but he doesn’t even notice. That’s helpful, because he is in the middle of two controversies right now. One is his decision to bolt for LIV. The other is a bizarre situation that occurred in Thursday’s first round.

Koepka hit a 5-iron into the green at the par-5 15th, and then he and his caddie, Ricky Elliott, appeared to signal “five” to his friend and playing partner, Gary Woodland. That appeared to be a violation of Rule 10.2a of the Rules of Golf, which states golfers may not “give advice to anyone in the competition who is playing on the course.” The penalty is two strokes.

I have mixed feelings about this one. This kind of subtle, low-level cheating is probably more common at the highest level than we think; players have been caught backstopping, or deliberately not marking their ball on the green, so a friend hitting from off the green has one more object that can stop his ball. But if you’re not going to enforce a rule, why have it? Then again, while it sure looked like Koepka helped Woodland, do we really have enough evidence to convict? Koepka and Woodland both denied it. The rule says a player cannot “ask anyone for advice, other than the player’s caddie.” Where is the evidence that Woodland asked for advice? Should only Koepka be penalized for an infraction that only helped Woodland? If this was part of an 18-hole information-sharing arrangement, the only time they got (sort of) caught was when Koepka helped Woodland.

Opinions may vary. Koepka’s is: Whatever. He said he was asked about it again Friday so he answered it again. Whether he is totally guilty or unfairly accused, he will probably not lose 10 seconds of sleep over it. So much has changed in golf, but this constant hovers over one more major. Brooks Koepka is here, representing Brooks Koepka.