Brooks Koepka makes his first PGA Tour start since departing for LIV in 2022 at this week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, and the five-time major winner has revealed that the first person he sought out for advice as he weighed up his options was none other than 15-time major winner, Tiger Woods.
Koepka and LIV announced that they’d amicably parted ways on December 23, and, keen to put his family first after a challenging year in which it was announced that his wife Jenna had suffered a miscarriage, he started to explore his options of returning to compete on the PGA Tour.
“I’m not going to get into too much detail about the family issues that we’ve had, but yeah, I believe it was September, right around the Ryder Cup week, we had to be in New York, we were up there for a little bit. Circumstances kind of changed in my family a little bit. Then that’s when I guess things started to change and evolve and just started to have those conversations of what’s best for my family. So we took it from there.
“Then I was — me and LIV, we left that agreement, everybody was happy with it. They understood the situation that I was in. Just excited to be out here. So I made that — I think the 23rd I was released and then called Tiger right away, then that process got the ball rolling.”
The three-time PGA Championship winner and two-time U.S. Open champion admitted that he’d not been privy to any details on the state of negotiations between LIV and the PGA Tour, nor was he aware of the intentions of any of the other players who were eligible to return to the PGA Tour under the Returning Member Program of which he availed, but he returned to the part that Tiger had played in his reinstatement.
Koepka revealed that he and Woods have always been on good terms, and that as a past sounding board for advice, not to mention the weight Woods’ opinions carry, he was the ideal first stopping point.
“I’ve always had a good relationship with Tiger,” Koepka said. “I felt like that was — that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to — once I had the opportunity to I guess get reinstated on PGA Tour, it was exciting and kind of really didn’t know what to do.
“That was the first person that kind of came to mind.
“I didn’t know Brian [Rolapp, PGA Tour CEO], I didn’t have a relationship with him obviously just because he’s pretty new. And Jay [Monahan, PGA Tour Commissioner]- Jay was going to be the next call. I felt like Tiger was somebody that I’ve relied on in the past for questions and answers and how to deal with things and I felt like that was maybe the most comfortable call for me.”
While Woods’ support for his return was evident from that initial phone call, Koepka did admit that he was nervous as to how he’d be received by many of the other PGA Tour members but the initial response has been very positive
“Yeah, I think the nervousness probably was more for this, to get this out of the way to be quite fair,” he said. “I’m excited just to — maybe a little bit antsy to get to Thursday, just so I can get back to playing golf and that’s where I feel the most comfortable.
“But I was definitely nervous just for this. Seeing guys, I mean, I was kind of overwhelmed at the text messages that I received from guys, guys on both sides and I think that was — it meant a lot to me. And like I said, I’m grateful, I’m excited and I just want to get back to playing golf.”
He then went on to reveal that he’d had a busy couple of days since arriving at Torrey Pines, catching up with a lot of his old competitors, caddies, and Tour officials.
“There’s maybe 10 to 15 guys that came up and said something,” he admitted. “A lot of caddies. It’s tough to kind of put a number on it. Yeah, it was a lot of, ‘Good to see you, glad you’re back’.
“Yeah, I would say, yeah, maybe 15 guys, 20 caddies, just random people, just people from the Tour. Yeah, that number jumps when you look at it that way outside of the players.”
Leave a comment