Tony Finau said last week that Brooks Koepka is one of the players he misses most on the PGA Tour. Koepka is also perhaps regretting his decision to bolt for the controversial Saudi-backed LIV Golf league.
“I’m hearing a lot of rumblings that Brooks Koepka has buyer’s remorse,” golf writer Alan Shipnuck wrote in a Q&A mailbag for the website The Fire Pit Collective. “The guy has one of the biggest egos in golf, and as the PGA Tour creates ever-increasing buzz with its elevated events and even the state-sanctioned TGL, Koepka has to feel like he’s on the outside looking in.”
While some of this could be considered conjecture, the four-time major champ and former World No. 1 did say on the recently released Netflix docuseries, “Full Swing,” that the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open is his favorite event.
Koepka has been suspended by the Tour since joining LIV last summer.
Shipnuck added that the 32-year-old Koepka, who counts the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock among his eight career PGA Tour victories, “has to feel like he’s on the outside looking in” when it comes to huge prize money increases on Tour — something that was a direct response to the emergence of LIV. The Phoenix Open is one of the Tour’s “elevated” events, with a $20 million purse that included $3.6 million to this year’s winner, Scottie Scheffler.
LIV CEO and commissioner Greg Norman’s son denied that Koepka was having buyer’s remorse, tweeting, “No. Bs.”
Koepka ditched the Tour for LIV following last year’s U.S. Open for a reported roughly $100 million guaranteed. He is also the captain of the Smash GC team that includes his younger brother Chase, along with Matthew Wolff and Jason Kokrak.
While Koepka still has exemptions into the Masters and British Open through 2024, the U.S. Open until 2028 and the PGA Championship for life, he has plummeted to 78th in the world rankings and is ineligible to play in the Ryder Cup this fall in Italy because of his suspension.
LIV’s second season tees off next week in Mexico.