SAN DIEGO (AP) \u2014 Brooks Koepka was freed from the final year of his contract with Saudi-funded LIV Golf and the first person he called was Tiger Woods. Three weeks later, the PGA Tour created a path back for him that starts at Torrey Pines.<\/p>\n
Koepka said Tuesday he can\u2019t wait for the week to end because of all the attention. The gratitude of returning to the PGA Tour comes with the kind of nerves the five-time major champion rarely experiences \u2014 wondering that others think about him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels a little bit different,\u201d he said ahead of the Farmers Insurance Open, his first non-major on the PGA Tour since he lost in the quarterfinals of the Match Play in March 2022. \u201cI\u2019m definitely a little bit more nervous this week just coming back. But it feels good. I\u2019m super grateful to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepka cited the need to be closer to family as his main reason for wanting out of LIV. His wife announced in early October she had a pregnancy loss at 16 weeks.<\/p>\n
Woods was partially responsible for Koepka\u2019s path back, along with other player-directors on the PGA Tour board who worked with CEO Brian Rolapp in coming up with a plan for select players to return. Koepka is the first LIV defector, and it came at a price.<\/p>\n
He is making a $5 million charity contribution (still to be decided with the tour), receives no FedEx Cup bonus money this year and has no access to equity shares in the PGA Tour for five years, a value the tour has estimated at $50 million and beyond.<\/p>\n
He also can\u2019t play the $20 million signature events until he qualifies on his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it\u2019s a fresh start for me, which is cool,\u201d Koepka said. \u201cIt\u2019s just another chapter I guess in my book. I\u2019m excited for that. I feel like my game\u2019s in pretty good shape and I want to see where it\u2019s at. Obviously this week is a little bit different. Would just like to get this week over and just feel like I can start playing golf again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woods never contemplated going to LIV and disparaged those who did \u2014 \u201cThey\u2019ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position,\u201d he said a month after LIV began \u2014 and he now is the leading player\u2019s voice on the PGA Tour board.<\/p>\n
Koepka said he\u2019s always had a good relationship with Woods. Besides, he had never met Rolapp, who had been on the job barely six months. Commissioner Jay Monahan, who attended Koepka\u2019s wedding a month before Koepka left for LIV in 2022, would have been next on his list.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like Tiger was somebody that I\u2019ve relied on in the past for questions and answers and how to deal with things and I felt like that was maybe the most comfortable call for me,\u201d Koepka said.<\/p>\n
Woods has been among several players who supported the decision to let Koepka back in, saying it made the PGA Tour stronger and ultimately would raise value for players who have been receiving equity shares. \u201cIt\u2019s a win for everyone,\u201d Woods said earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler, the world\u2019s No. 1 player who shares the same manager as Koepka, also supported the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s good getting someone back on tour that want to be back,\u201d Scheffler said last week. \u201cBrooks had a desire to come back to the tour. The last few months he certainly had a large desire to get back to the tour, and I\u2019m glad that Brian and the team and the board was able to find an avenue for him to be able to get back and start competing out here again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still to be determined, at either Torrey Pines or next week in the Phoenix Open, is how golf fans receive a player who bolted from the PGA Tour after the 2022 U.S. Open for a rival league that was paying outrageous signing bonuses. Koepka once confirmed his was \u201cnine figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I\u2019m a little nervous about that as well, just to see how the fans respond to it,\u201d Koepka said. \u201cI hope that they\u2019re excited. I hope that they\u2019re happy that I\u2019m out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepka could not remember the last time he was at a tournament on Monday except for the majors. Just pulling into the parking lot was such a blur that he doesn\u2019t recall whom he first saw. There were hugs with Billy Horschel and Harris English on the range.<\/p>\n
And then it was off to the South Course to play the back nine. He played with rookie Marcelo Rozo. Joining them on the 18th tee were Akshay Bhatia and Matti Schmid, neither of them on the PGA Tour when Koepka left. Nearly half of the field in the Wednesday pro-am didn\u2019t even have PGA Tour cards when Koepka left.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of new faces,\u201d Koepka said. \u201dBut excited to meet those guys and feel like I\u2019m part of the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
He returns to a PGA Tour in the midst of big changes. Woods leads the Future Competition Committee that is reshaping the schedule so that every event feels like a big one. There are 11 tournaments with prize money of at least $20 million, not counting the four majors.<\/p>\n
Is it better than when he left?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m two days in,\u201d Koepka said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Justin Rose answered that for him last week when asked about Koepka\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve all benefited from this chaos in one way or another,\u201d Rose said. \u201cIt\u2019s been good for tour players in the sense the powers that be pushed a little harder in our direction with equity in the tour and prize funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we need a premium product,\u201d he said. \u201dAnd this is the first time we\u2019ve had someone who moves the needle come back our way.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (AP) \u2014 Brooks Koepka was freed from the final year of his contract with Saudi-funded LIV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-437262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}