Koepka refuses to speculate on his future

Brooks Koepka unwittingly became the subject of speculation as to whether certain LIV players wished to return to the PGA Tour when Fred Couples told the American radio station KJR 93.3 FM that the five-time major winner wanted back. 

“I talk to Brooks Koepka all the time. I love Brooks Koepka,” the 1992 Masters champion said. “And, I’m not going to say anything extra except I talk to him all the time — where are you playing next and, you know, when are you going and all this stuff — and he wants to come back, I will say that. I believe he really wants to come back and play the Tour.”

Phil Mickelson was among those who took exception to Couples’ remarks, branding it “a low-class, jerk move” in an X post that was swiftly deleted, but Koepka himself was given the opportunity to say exactly where he stands on the issue when he joined Graeme McDowell, Jason Kokrak and Talor Gooch for the Smash GC pre-tournament press conference at LIV Singapore.

But rather than definitively pin his colours to any mast, Koepka was circumspect, saying that since he was unsure of where his future lay, it was hard to see how anybody else could know.

Yeah, Fred texted me after, I guess, the comments came out,” Koepka said when posed the question about his future. “I don’t know when it was. Sometime last week. Yeah, everybody seems to have their own opinion and no one asks me.

“I talk to Fred quite a bit, but we don’t go too much into detail about what’s going on. Like I’ve said before, I’m not in those rooms. I’ve got a contract obligation out here to fulfill, and then we’ll see what happens.

“I don’t know where I’m going, so I don’t know how everybody else does. Right now I’m just focused on how do I play better, how do I play better in the majors, how does this team win, and then we’ll figure out next year and how to play better again. It’s the same thing. It’s just a revolving cycle.

“I’ve got nothing. Everybody else seems to know more than I do.”

Koepka’s vague answer, coming on the back of yet another press conference in which PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan was evasive in discussing the state of the negotiations with the PIF, adds credence to the idea that both sides are unsure if or when any deal will be reached and that the landscape might look like in the aftermath.