Brooks Koepka has been carefully picking his words since rejoining the PGA Tour, but a wide-ranging press conference ahead of The Players Championship offered the most candid look yet at how the five-time major champion sees his return, the competition gap between the tours, and the slump that has defined his last 12 months.
Koepka admitted the reception from PGA Tour galleries had blindsided him. "Maybe just how great the fans have been. I think that's kind of been the big thing," he said. "I didn't know how the reception was going to be. Obviously, you know, you can sit in bed and just kind of lay there and think about a million different things of how it's going to go and it never really comes to fruition of exactly what you think. So I think that's been the big thing. It's been exciting. It's been fun. And it makes it enjoyable to be out there."
The emotional pull of the return surprised him. "I didn't think it was going to be maybe as emotional for me. But it was great. It was honestly a great feeling. Sometimes I can be very good at burying my emotions. And I just look at it as this is a job. Just be robotic and go about your process. But when I get away from it I was just taking in the moment and appreciating where I was, and I think that was something I haven't done in maybe my professional career."
Asked the inevitable question — how does the standard of play on the PGA Tour stack up against LIV — Koepka stayed diplomatic but pointed. "There's good players everywhere. There's a lot of great players out here. Everybody in this room knows that Jon Rahm's a hell of a player. There's good players out there. DP, same thing. There's good players everywhere. This feels pretty good. I'll put it that way."
He also conceded he no longer recognises a sizeable portion of the field, the result of an extended absence on LIV. "There's a lot of new people. I would say I mean, I don't know if this is to guess, but 30% of this tour I don't know right now. I'm knowing more guys just being out here, but going to take me a few more weeks."
Koepka was candid that his event schedule is partly dictated by what is now off-limits to LIV defectors. "It's very easy because I'm not allowed to play certain events. So the other events I've got to play if I want to make sure I'm sharp and ready for the big events. You'd like to be there last week, but I understand those are consequences of my decisions. And I'm a big boy. I understand that. So I got to sit at home and watch. And the answer to everything is play good golf and everything will take care of itself."
The cause of his recent struggles, he believes, is simple — and not new. "It was a lot of putting. I think it's been going on longer than a year though. Just where the consistency of speed hasn't been there. Every time I hit a good putt, it just kind of hit the lip. Or would miss it by a foot. When you feel like you did something right and you look up and it's not even close, you know that there's a problem. And that was just kind of my breaking point in Phoenix."
The knock-on effect, he explained, has been a cascade through the rest of his game. "I felt like I had to make birdie from my approach play. And I think that sometimes if you're not doing something well, it can cost you, just because you try to be maybe a little bit more aggressive or take on a pin that you normally wouldn't have and then somehow you end up in a horrible spot and you're looking at bogey with a wedge."
After the Phoenix Open, Koepka changed his phone number — "wanted a little bit of a reset" — and refocused on preparation for the season's biggest weeks. With the Masters behind him and a Zurich Classic appearance with Shane Lowry on the calendar, the four-time major winner appears to be settling back into PGA Tour rhythm. The putting, he insists, will follow.