For roughly two years, golfers Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau have been at odds with each other. But Koepka thinks it’s good for the game of golf.
“I think it’s good for the game. I really do,” he said during a news conference from the Palmetto Championship at Congaree outside of Ridgeland, South Carolina, per ESPN. “The fact that golf’s on pretty much every news outlet for about two weeks pretty consistently, I think that’s a good thing.
“It’s growing the game. The younger generation—I get the traditionalists who don’t agree with it. I understand that, but I think to grow the game you’ve got to reach out to the younger generation, and I don’t want to say that’s what this is, but it’s reaching out to a whole bunch of people. It’s getting golf in front of people. I think it’s good for the game.”
The two golfer’s most recent collisions have been Grade A entertainment.
While attempting to do an interview with Golf Channel after his second round at the PGA Championship, Koepka became distracted when DeChambeau walked behind him and was fed up.
“Sometimes, um—I lost my train of thought, hearing that bulls—,” Koepka said. “F—— Christ.”
The outtake was never meant to be seen but Koepka said he didn’t mind on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t bother me, honestly,” Koepka said. “I’m OK with anything I do. I don’t really live with regrets. It’s nothing I’m terribly upset about. From everybody I spoke to, it is what it is and move on.
“As far as that was, he didn’t say anything to me. He wasn’t speaking to me. He was either signing his scorecard or wherever and I was just to the right of the media tent, or I guess right in front of the microphones where you guys all were, and I don’t want to say he was like screaming — he was saying something about how he hit a perfect shot and it shouldn’t have been there, and it was just very, very loud. I don’t think the mics picked up on that, but it felt like just so that the fans could hear.
“With the media right there, you kind of know, hey, look, we’re all kind of in this area, just tone it down, and it was just so loud. Then I think he realized that he had gotten right behind me, and he toned it down a little bit, but it was still — and I just lost train of thought, which I think was pretty obvious.”
What was meant to be seen, however, is how the two have exchanged Twitter jabs. Koepka recently offered beer to fans who were screaming “Brooksy” to DeChambeau and subsequently faced repercussions during the Memorial Tournament.
The two will likely be members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in September but Koepka didn’t think it would be a problem.
“There’s only eight guys that are playing, four guys are sitting, whatever,” Koepka said, according to ESPN. “I mean, I play with one other guy. I don’t understand—if let’s say I don’t play with Bryson or Bryson doesn’t play with me, he takes care of his match, and I would take care of my match, and I don’t know how that has any effect. What you do off the golf course doesn’t have any effect on the golf course.”
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