Brooks Koepka is known for his swagger and confidence, but with two weeks to go until his PGA Championship title defense, the five-time major champion isn’t feeling very good about his chances at Valhalla Golf Club for the second men’s major of the year.
While speaking with the media ahead of 2024 LIV Golf Singapore at Sentosa Golf Club this week, Koepka said he felt like he wasted time from December until last month’s Masters, where he finished T-45 at 9 over thanks to four rounds over par of 73-73-76-75.
“Just keep grinding away, keep doing the work, and hopefully something will turn around,” said Koepka, who then criticized his poor putting as the main reason for his struggles.
“Ball doesn’t go in the hole, that’s usually one of them. I don’t know how else to simply put it,” he said of his woes with the flatstick. “I feel like I’m hitting good putts, they just keep burning lips. Eventually it starts to wear on you after a while. All you can do is hit a good putt and see where it goes from there. Hopefully they start falling soon.”
“I can’t find the hole at all, to be honest with you,” he added. “Something we’ve just been putting some work into, so trying to find some answers.”
Koepka switched to a mallet putter two weeks before the Masters and hasn’t touched the previous putter that he’s used for the last dozen years since.
So far this LIV Golf season, Koepka has two top-10 finishes (T-5 in the season opener in Mexico and T-9 last week in Australia) as well as a head-scratching T-45 out of 54 players in Miami.