Koepka 'piecing together' for Masters

LIV star primed to redeem his disappointing 2024 season on major stages

Brooks Koepka brought his usual candor to LIV Miami event press conference (Chris Trotman/LIV Golf)

The small stuff has never mattered much to Brooks Koepka.

That’s why finding any reason to fret over his tie for 18th at the LIV Golf Miami event — where he never broke par in three rounds at Doral — is fruitless.

Koepka undoubtedly wanted a better result the weekend before heading to the Masters. But he was hardly going to let it bother him.

It’s this week at Augusta National that matters.

Koepka forged a majors-or-bust reputation long before he left for LIV. It’s not always been a fair assessment, but it hasn’t exactly been one he’s tried to downplay, either.

When Koepka played on the PGA Tour, he had four major championship victories but just four regular wins in PGA Tour events. He’s added a fifth major at the 2023 PGA Championship since joining LIV Golf and has won more LIV events — five — than any other player.

But it’s those major wins that distinguish him, which is why being a non-factor on the biggest stages in 2024 irritated him so much.

After a second-place finish to Scottie Scheffler at the 2023 Masters left him annoyed with himself for the way he approached the final round as the 54-hole leader, Koepka came back a month later to win the PGA at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.

Last year, however, was disappointing. A tie for 45th at the Masters was followed by no top-20 finishes in any of the other majors.

“I still do the same prep work, still the same thing I’ve done my entire career,” said Koepka, 34, before the LIV Golf event in Miami. “I feel like overall my major career over the last 10 years has been pretty solid, like last year I don’t think I played very good just all throughout.

“The whole year wasn’t quite as consistent as I wanted, and I think the bigger the event, the more pressure, the cracks kind of show, and it just wasn’t my year. But trying to fix that. I feel like my game is in a lot better shape right now, and we’ll see where it’s at, obviously, next week.”

Koepka is one of 12 LIV Golf players competing in the Masters, including U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, 2023 Masters winner Jon Rahm, 2022 British Open champ Cam Smith and 2021 PGA and three-time Masters winner Phil Mickelson.

Several of them were high on the leaderboard in Miami, only to fall back Sunday as Australia’s Marc Leishman — who is not in the Masters field — won the Doral event.

Koepka did finish second in LIV’s event in Singapore last month but obviously he’s got his eye set on winning more majors. At age 34, he expects to still be among the top players in the biggest tournaments.

All of which made last year’s Masters so mystifying. He came in feeling good about his chances and fell flat, a third-round 76 leaving him out of the Sunday mix and searching for answers.

He was on the driving range at Augusta National with coach Pete Cowen until near darkness trying to sort it out before the final round. And he later punished himself with extra workouts as he felt he let his team down.

It resulted in some solid golf for LIV — he won in Singapore and beat Rahm in a playoff at the Greenbrier — but still encountered more frustration in the majors.

“I just always last year felt like there was always a four- or five-hole stretch that really just threw me out of the golf tournament,” Koepka said. “I don’t know whether that was focus. … Other than that, I would have been right there.

“But yeah, I just couldn’t piece together 18 holes last year of solid golf, and that was kind of my issue.”

Dating back to 2014, Koepka has 19 top-10 finishes in majors. He won three out of the seven he played in 2017-18 — missing the Masters with an injury — and then was top-four in all four majors in 2019, finishing runner-up at the Masters and U.S. Open, winning the PGA and finishing tied for fourth at the British Open.

He had three more top-six finishes in 2021 before a knee injury started to make him question his golf future. It’s among the reasons he made the move to LIV Golf in 2022, although his health rebounded and led to his runner-up at the Masters and the victory at the PGA in 2023.

Six majors have passed since, however, without Koepka contending. Without even a top-10. Koepka hopes to get back on track at the Masters.

“I’d say mine starts probably like a month ago,” he said of his preparation. “Typically a slow starter when it comes to playing actually good tournament golf, but everything seems to be piecing together nicely. I like where I’m at right now. Just focused a lot on ball-striking. Everything inside maybe 200 yards is kind of what I tend to focus on quite a bit. And just touch around the greens, because you’re going to need that at Augusta.”