PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Brooks Koepka didn’t wait long after his career-worst round on the PGA Tour to go in search of answers.
Koepka told Golfweek that he left the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill on Sunday and flew to Las Vegas, where he spent several hours on Monday with legendary coach Butch Harmon. On Tuesday he flew back east to TPC Sawgrass, where the Players Championship begins tomorrow.
“I saw him Monday for quite a few hours,” Koepka said Wednesday morning. “It was important to get out there and find something you believe in.”
The world No. 3 has struggled in his comeback from a three-month layoff for a knee injury. He was T-43 at the Genesis Open, missed the cut at the Honda Classic then finished T-47 at Bay Hill last weekend, during which he skiied to a Saturday 81, the worst score of his career.
Koepka made clear his visit to Butch has no impact on the status of his team. He has worked for seven years on his full swing with Butch’s son, Claude Harmon III, and on his short game with Pete Cowen.
“Claude is still my swing coach and Pete is still my short game coach,” he said. “I’m not a tinkerer. I keep things simple and I had gotten away from that. It’s not a knock on anyone. Not on Claude. Not on Pete. Not on Ricky [Elliott, his caddie]. It’s a knock on me.”
On Tuesday night Koepka gathered his inner circle at a house near TPC Sawgrass for a meeting. “We had a team meeting last night. I called myself out on some things,” he admitted. “Everyone wanted to make sure that when they show up they’re doing their job. They’re 100% focused. I’m doing what I need to do, they’re doing what they need to do. It was just a regroup session.”
Asked what the elder Harmon told him, Koepka pointed to a creeping narrowness in his swing. “It’s all simple stuff. You go back to basics,” he explained. “I was getting pretty narrow on the backswing, narrow on the follow through. From there you got no speed, no power, no control. You try to get that width and you can get power and you can finally load, weight shifted in the correct spots, things like that.”
The drive-by with Butch left Koepka noticeably more upbeat ahead of his opening round in the company of the only two men ahead of him in the world rankings: Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. “I feel good. I feel like we got something to work on,” he said. “The season starts now for us and let’s kick it into gear.”