{"id":517041,"date":"2026-03-11T12:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T12:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517041\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T12:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T12:43:09","slug":"it-feels-good-to-be-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517041\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It feels good to be back’"},"content":{"rendered":"

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Brooks Koepka had no idea how rewarding reentry would be.<\/p>\n

The aura Koepka exudes when he\u2019s in his public domain \u2014 on the golf course competing and speaking to the media \u2014 has never been warm and fuzzy.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t at all to say Koepka hasn\u2019t been cooperative, accountable and professional. He has. He\u2019s just never been a smell-the-roses kind of guy.<\/p>\n

When Koepka and a number of the game\u2019s stars left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf\u2019s countless millions in June 2022, the move was polarizing, characterized as hostile by the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

So when Koepka became the first player to rejoin the PGA Tour earlier this year<\/a> on the \u201cReturning Member Program,\u2019\u2019 he had no idea what to expect in the way of fan and player reception.<\/p>\n

Would he feel a cold shoulder or feel embraced?<\/p>\n

Koepka, who has five major championships on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, was ranked 19th in the world when he left for LIV.<\/p>\n

When he tees it up at the Players Championship<\/a> in Thursday\u2019s opening round at TPC Sawgrass for the first time since 2022, he\u2019ll do so ranked 221st in the world and more than three years removed from his last PGA Tour victory.<\/p>\n

If there was any player on LIV who missed the juice of playing against the best players in the world on the PGA Tour, it was Koepka. <\/p>\n

He did win the 2023 PGA Championship as a member of LIV and was runner-up at the Masters earlier that year. <\/p>\n

\"BrooksBrooks Koepka talks to the media on March 10, 2026 in preparation for The Players Championship which begins Thursday. Getty Images<\/p>\n

But Koepka\u2019s results in major championships dropped precipitously in the past two years, with nothing better than a tie for 26th in 2024 and missed cuts in three of the four in 2025.<\/p>\n

Since his return, at the Farmers Insurance Open in January, Koepka has been taken aback by how emotionally affected he\u2019s been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think it was going to be maybe as emotional for me, but it was,\u2019\u2019 Koepka said Tuesday. \u201cIt was honestly a great feeling. Sometimes, I can be very good at burying my emotions. I just look at it as this is a job, just be robotic and go about your process. I\u2019m pretty sure everybody sees that when I\u2019m on the golf course.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I get away from it, I\u2019m very chill, very relaxed and enjoying life. Taking in the moment and appreciating where I was \u2026 I think that was something I haven\u2019t done in my professional career, and it was just enjoyable.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"BrooksBrooks Koepka hits a tee shot on the 18th hole in the final round of the Cognizant Classic in which he finished in ninth place. AP<\/p>\n

Koepka on Tuesday spoke like someone who\u2019s smelling the roses now. He\u2019s embracing what he didn\u2019t realize he missed so much in the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Since his reentry onto the PGA Tour, Koepka finished tied for 56th in the Farmers Insurance Open, he missed the cut at the Waste Management and tied for ninth two weeks ago at the Cognizant in the Palm Beaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first week was just trying to get that out of the way,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cThen the second week, I felt like it was very disappointing [missing the cut]. I made a few changes \u2014 a new putter, working on a few different mechanical things in the putting. I felt like it started to click Thursday afternoon after round one at Cognizant, feeling good, hitting it good \u2026 just building momentum.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The PGA Tour\u2019s \u201cReturning Members Program,\u2019\u2019 which was introduced in January, created a pathway for the LIV Golf members who\u2019d been away for at least two years to rejoin the tour if they\u2019d won a major championship or the Players Championship between 2022 and 2025.<\/p>\n

The only players eligible for that were Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith.<\/p>\n

Only Koepka took the tour up on it<\/a>, agreeing to the provision that he pay a $5 million fine to go to charity.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s speculation that Brian Rolapp, the newly hired PGA Tour CEO who was behind creating the \u201cReturning Member Program,\u2019\u2019 is about to expand that program in an aggressive approach to entice more LIV players to return.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what to expect, but the fans have been great, and the players have been great, too,\u2019\u2019 Koepka said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a good feeling. It feels good to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Brooks Koepka had no idea how rewarding reentry would be. The aura Koepka…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[18939,427,99,212845],"class_list":["post-517041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-brooks-koepka","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-the-players-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}