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Brooks Koepka took to the microphone on Wednesday on the Ryder Cup.
Getty Pictures
ROME — Brooks Koepka was in a giving temper on Wednesday afternoon as he sat all the way down to the rostrum for his pre-Ryder Cup media session.
That doesn’t essentially imply Koepka was heat or fuzzy; that’s not likely his press-conference type. However it meant he was able to dish out a pair uncooked, trustworthy, unvarnished takes.
The primary got here as the results of a terrific query from the AP’s Doug Ferguson.
If the Ryder Cup got here down to 1 match on the course to determine it, I think in the event you ask all 24 guys right here if they need the ball, they’d say sure. What number of of them do you assume actually imply it?
Koepka paused. It is a man who has famously stated that the tournaments the place he can rely out essentially the most rivals are the key championships, in any case. He believes in himself. And he doubts his competitors.
“Only a few,” he stated, ultimately. “False confidence, I feel.”
It was the second of the pre-tournament media availability. A murmur went via the evenly crammed room. He continued.
“I feel aside from the Ryder Cup, I feel essentially the most strain you’ll be able to really feel is in a serious. Guys ought to imagine in themselves, however everyone else has acquired to be pondering that they don’t. That’s why I feel that approach. You’ve acquired to assume you’re the perfect participant on the golf course, greatest participant on the workforce, greatest participant in that present time, and in the event you don’t, then there’s one thing flawed with you.”
In different phrases, Koepka actually does imagine in his psychological toughness. However he additionally deliberately thinks that approach, too.
“You’ve at all times acquired to imagine you’re the perfect and need to be the perfect and have that drive, and that’s what’s going to place you over the sting,” he stated. “I feel quite a lot of guys have it, however I don’t know what number of guys would need an eight-footer with this on the road.”
Koepka additionally spoke freely on LIV. One factor that has endeared Koepka to his followers and PGA Tour friends has been his dedication to calling it how he sees it; he hasn’t gone out of his method to reward LIV nor denigrate the PGA Tour. However as the one LIV participant right here — “I didn’t discover,” he deadpanned — the questions had been inevitable.
Does he really feel like he’s representing LIV?
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“I really feel like I’m representing the USA,” he stated, channeling his interior Mike Eruzione. “That’s what I’ve acquired on the entrance of my hat this week, in order that’s what I’m representing. It’s not a gaggle of people in that locker room. We’re simply all one workforce, and that’s the way in which we expect. That’s what I imagine, and I’m fairly positive everyone else there thinks that.”
He was requested about LIV’s workforce format and the way it may assist him in Ryder Cup competitors — however he rejected that concept.
“I imply, you’re simply going to play a spherical of golf after which the workforce scores add up on the finish,” he stated. “I don’t see how that has actually any translation to this format.”
In current weeks there’s additionally been some chatter about LIV professionals and whether or not they need to have been given larger consideration by U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson. Dustin Johnson stated that he was “ok” to be on the workforce and that he would have made it had been he nonetheless a PGA Tour member. Bryson DeChambeau echoed these sentiments after profitable LIV’s Chicago occasion this previous weekend.
“Brooks is clearly going to kill it for Staff USA subsequent week and [I’m] excited for the workforce, however yeah, it positively does sting somewhat bit,” DeChambeau stated.
“Say what you need, we’re nonetheless golfers, and I personally assume that given the way in which I performed this week, I might have positively racked up some factors for Staff USA.”
Koepka, in contrast, hasn’t been enjoying his greatest golf on LIV. However via his PGA Championship victory and Masters runner-up end, he earned sufficient factors to basically auto-qualify for the workforce. (He fell outdoors the highest six solely within the closing week of qualifying, when PGA Tour professionals jumped him within the FedEx Cup playoffs.) Requested whether or not his LIV friends have been ignored, he wasn’t precisely sympathetic to their trigger.
“I don’t make the selections,” he stated. “All people had a possibility to get there. I imply, I had the identical alternative as each different LIV participant, and I’m right here.
“Play higher. That’s at all times the reply.”
Koepka even provided some suggestions on the coiffure at present sported by teammate Sam Burns; Koepka has not too long ago dedicated to what is likely to be described as an understated mullet however Burns has gone all in.
“Sam has acquired a pleasant Kentucky waterfall going. It’s fairly stable, though the USA that’s inscribed within the facet of his head, I don’t know if he was doing that trying in a mirror as a result of it’s not — USA doesn’t look the perfect, however it makes it even higher, I feel. It positively lessons it up somewhat bit.”
As for Koepka’s personal recreation? He hasn’t been fairly himself in a pair months; he completed T64 within the closing main of the yr and doesn’t have a high 15 in his most up-to-date 4 LIV occasions. However he prides himself on his capability to rise up for giant occasions. And this week?
“It’s a giant occasion, so I’ll be there,” he stated. He even allowed himself to let his thoughts wander to a hypothetical Sunday afternoon singles match with all the things on the road…
“We don’t know the place we’re going to be on Sunday, what order, or at the least I don’t. I don’t assume any of the fellows have that down but,” he stated. “However I imply, you need to play a very good participant. And yeah, I’d like to play Jon [Rahm], Rory [McIlroy], Vik [Hovland].
“I’ll play anyone.”
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