Brooks Koepka has never been shy about speaking his mind, and he proved just that by calling out his own Smash GC teammate Matthew Wolff.
Wolff has struggled since he joined LIV Golf, the upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and even withdrew before the final round of an event outside of Washington, D.C. in May when he was 46th out of 48 players. Ahead of this week’s LIV event at the Centurion Club outside London – the site of LIV’s first tournament last year – Koepka criticized Wolff’s work ethic and attitude.
“I mean, when you quit on your round, you give up and stuff like that, that’s not competing,” Koepka said to Sports Illustrated. “I’m not a big fan of that. You don’t work hard. It’s very tough. It’s very tough to have even like a team dynamic when you’ve got one guy that won’t work, one guy is not going to give any effort, he’s going to quit on the course, break clubs, gets down, bad body language, it’s very tough. I’ve basically given up on him—a lot of talent, but I mean the talent’s wasted.”
Wolff was a player that many teams had their eye on after LIV’s debut eight-event season in 2022, but has left something to be desired in 2023, especially as of late. The 24-year-old finished T-7, T-10, T-5 to start the season, but has since been on the bottom half of the leaderboard with finishes of T-44, T-41, T-30, WD and 44th (friendly reminder that LIV events only have 48 players).
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“I’m here, you know, trying to do what I can to play the best round of golf and that’s going to help the team,” Wolff told Sports Illustrated, adding that he’s healthy. “I’m just here to focus on myself and try to play some good golf and that’s what everyone’s really trying to do, because golf is trying to put the best score up and then if that helps your team it’s great.”
When asked if he wanted to be on another team, Wolff stared, shook his head, and walked off.
After the WD in D.C., Wolff was scraped from Smash GC’s social media accounts. So far this season Wolff has earned $2,951,667 over eight events and currently ranks higher in LIV’s standings (28) compared to Koepka’s brother, Chase (45).