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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Brooks Koepka is the mystery man coming into the 2020 Masters. While missing the FedEx Cup Playoffs and U.S. Open during a two-month layoff, Koepka underwent a second stem-cell treatment on his left knee and a cortisone injection in his hip and proclaimed himself healthy and ready to add to his collection of four major championship trophies.
“Everything’s fine. I feel normal. Knee feels good. Hip, I haven’t had an issue with. Nice to have those two months rehabbing in San Diego and getting everything straightened away,” said Koepka, who finished tied for 28th at the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek and shot a pair of 65s on the weekend to tie for fifth at the Vivint Houston Open last week.
Koepka expressed little regret for delaying his layoff so he could try to three-peat at the PGA Championship in May and try to qualify for the FedEx Cup in August. But he did say he wished he had work harder during his rehab from the first surgery.
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“I don’t want to say I was slacking, but I didn’t put the effort I needed to to rehab. And that’s on me, so I’ve got to live with that,” he said. “Just became lazy. Simple. I didn’t work hard enough, and kind of had to re-devote myself to working out in the gym, making sure that I’m getting better, because that’s the whole point of trying to get better. You’re not trying to stay the same.”
When asked if he felt as good as he did during the stretch of time when he won four majors in a span of nine played, Koepka said, “I feel just as good as I did at Bellerive (2018 PGA), Bethpage (2019 PGA), all those. Everyone, felt this good.”
Koepka has heard the steady undercurrent of remarks devaluing his major triumphs, and Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee once again provided all the bulletin-board material that he could ever need for this week.
Speaking on the Brandel Chamblee Podcast, he said of Koepka’s major success, “It’s a great accomplishment his run in the major championships but they were on wide open [courses], it was tennis without the net. Erin Hills, you cannot hit as many fairways as he hit at Erin Hills. Shinnecock same deal, very wide fairways. The misses weren’t punished because the greens were so soft.
“Is he tough mentally? Heck, yeah. But to extrapolate from those wins that he has the best mind in the game of golf is overlooking the fact that the golf courses he won on were wide open and not necessarily as punishing as they should have been and as stressful as they should have been.
“When he’s on, his talent is immense. He is formidable. But, the only problem I have with anointing him with the same sort of reverence in terms of skill that we do Rory is because Rory has proven to be more consistent in the long haul and has less holes in his game. I value consistency as much as I do brilliance and Rory has both of them.”
Chamblee’s podcast co-host Jaime Diaz said, “I think he might take the ‘tennis without a net’ comment into the Masters.”
Indeed, he may. A year ago, Koepka opened with 66 at Augusta National and had a great chance to win the Masters until he rinsed his tee shot at No. 12 and made double bogey. He would go on to finish tied for second, one shot behind Tiger Woods.
“It was right there on Sunday,” Koepka said. “It was just my body wouldn’t let me do it.”
According to Koepka, that shouldn’t be an issue or an excuse this time. Could it be Round 3 of Koepka and Woods doing battle on Sunday at a major? Koepka got the better of his childhood idol at the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive. In April 2019, in his celebratory moment, Woods took the time to send Koepka a message that required little decoding.
“He said something walking off 18 last year, like, 1-1 now, something like that, so fair play to him,” Koepka said.
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