Brooks Koepka’s comeback continues. But what about his putter?
It would be foolish to doubt Brooks Koepka, a man of five majors, who has pocketed many slows and used them to fuel his greatest success on the golf course.
But it would also be foolish to look at him now, in this day and age when he has conquered the whole world. Something is wrong. Ignoring that would be foolish. So what is confusing Koepka as he plays his third PGA Tour event since retiring from LIV Golf? Broadcasters talked about it when he broadcast his first game of the season. That’s the machine. I the old one one.
Koepka’s performance in his first tournament back (at Torrey Pines) showed a man with a decent driver and solid iron game. On the greens, Koepka could stand up, but not so much on the downhills. The Scotty Cameron blade-type putter he’s used all his life hurt so bad in San Diego that he ended up dead in Strokes Jained: Putting all the bad guys out there. In context, he finished 12 strokes behind runner-up Ryo Hisatsune, and 11 shots behind him with just the putter.
Although the golf world tended to cut him some slack, Koepka wasn’t ready to move on from the status quo. He showed up in Phoenix a week later swinging something completely different — a mallet called a flat-stick — and openly admitted in his press conference that something had to change. “I’ve been putting too badly on the good side for two years,” Koepka said. “I don’t know what’s going on but I have to find you.”
He wasn’t lying. Koepka at his peak was a top-5 putter in the world. During his winning streak, he was consistently above average on tour, a healthy baseline that left room for him to win whenever the putter got hot throughout the week.
His quick results with the mallet weren’t much better. Koepka missed the cut in Phoenix where, again, his Strokes Gained results were well below average that week. But as he said on Wednesday, perhaps we shouldn’t have expected immediate results. Koepka estimated he hit about “300 putts” with that mallet — the TaylorMade Spider TourX — before putting it in the bag.
“But having two weeks to be able to do the job and make some changes, it should be a lot better,” he said Wednesday morning in Florida. Getting a new putter i go in that sense, it feels like putting on new shoes. The more time you have to break them, the better they feel, but at first there is a learning curve.
“I didn’t know exactly where I was hitting it,” he said, “and obviously when you change putters, the speed becomes a different thing.”
“Now I understand exactly where to hit it and where it’s going. I feel like my speed control is better, and with just a few changes, I’m working on those things.”
As we’ve learned from his past few tournaments, Koepka didn’t mince words in his explanations. As always, he would like his game to do the talking. We will be curious to hear what his taker has to say. We will have two more rounds this week. Maybe even four.
This week he will be playing near his home in south Florida. Without a top-two finish, Koepka will not qualify for next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, meaning he will have a week off before the full schedule resumes. He is currently listed in the field for the Players Championship, the Valspar Championship and the Houston Open.
Plenty of time to warm up his putter before the big championship season begins.
“>
