Getty Image / Keyur Khamar
Brooks Koepka’s season, both prior to and after the pause, hasn’t necessarily been stellar, at least not when it comes to his own standards. The four-time major winner has just one Top 10 finish and four missed cuts in 10 starts dating back to October of 2019.
His last win came exactly one year ago at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis where he will defend his title this week. While some may assume that the confidence may be lacking due to his underwhelming results this season, well, those people would be wrong.
During a media appearance on Wednesday in Memphis, Koepka was asked if he still carries his well-known, uber-confident mindset despite his recent form. Koepka gave a very on-brand answer pointing to next week’s PGA Championship, the tournament he’s won two years in a row.
“I’m defending, aren’t I?,” Koepka told the reporter. The reporter hit him back with a “yeah” before Koepka replied back saying “OK, just checking.”
The confidence is still very much there, clearly, despite the fact that health-wise he hasn’t been 100%.
Koepka has been battling through some left knee issues since last March and actually re-injured it in October at the CJ Cup at Nine Bridges after slipping on concrete. The injury has limited his schedule and forced him to withdraw from the Presidents Cup. He explained that his kneecap wasn’t stable and was moving all over the place before later explaining that his knee may ‘never bee 100%’ again.
Koepka has been open about discussing the pain in his knee and gave an update on his status during the presser as well. Things don’t necessarily sound great as he explained he can’t even run at the moment.
“It will get sore if I beat balls long enough,” Koepka said according to Golfweek. “I’ll come back, I’ll ice it. It limits what I can do. I don’t know how to explain this well, but I can’t run. I take these little steps and try to do it very quickly. That’s kind of my run right now,” Koepka said. “Biking, I can do it like once a week without it really flaring up and getting too painful. Can’t do much cardio. But it’s definitely changed a lot of things for me, that’s for sure.”
As we all know, Koepka turns into a different animal when major championships are on the line. He’ll be looking to regain some confidence and test out the knee this week in Memphis before taking on TPC Harding Park in next week’s PGA Championship.