Brooks Koepka insists his friendship with Rory McIlroy remains on a solid footing despite the pair’s different outlooks on the future of the game of golf.
While Koepka plies his trade on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, McIlroy declared last week in Scotland that if LIV was the last place to play golf on earth, he’d retire.
Asked if the split at the top of men’s pro golf has cut so deep that relationships – like the one he enjoys with McIlroy – have been damaged beyond repair, Koepka said:
“Probably you should ask Rory that. I don’t know. I can’t speak for him,” he answered.
“I know me and Rory have had quite a few good talks over the last, I don’t know, year, maybe couple months.
“Yeah, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, how they feel about it.
“To me, I don’t have enough information on it to even know how to feel, what to think. That’ll probably be coming in the next few months I’d say.”
The five-time Major winner is referring to the PGA Tour’s efforts to partner with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and what that might mean for the future of LIV and the wider golf ecosystem.
Still, even with Koepka and McIlroy dug deep in opposite trenches, that hasn’t stopped their relationship flourishing off the course, contrary to what people might think.
“We’ve always been friends,” Koepka said. “And he’s told me some stuff that’s gone on with him that I really appreciate. He’s opened up.”
In fact, Koepka maintains that his decision to leave the PGA Tour hasn’t affected his relationship with any of his peers, at least those he’s encountered in person.
“Unless they’re saying it [negative comments] behind my back. I don’t know of anybody that’s extremely mad at me,” Koepka said.
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