Brooks Koepka’s Masters ambitions thrown into doubt by rib injury
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Version 0 of 1. As a player who has already won on the PGA Tour this season and claimed a top-five major place during the last one, Brooks Koepka had cause to be consumed by excitement during this, the lead-up to the Masters. The 24-year-old Floridian is due to make his Augusta National debut in little over a fortnight’s time. A cruel twist of fate, though, has landed upon Koepka and placed serious question marks alongside his aspirations. He withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, the first time he has done such a thing during his golfing career, after a rib injury which appeared as Koepka completed his warm-up session for the second round proved too troublesome to withstand. Even when addressing the media outside Bay Hill’s locker room, Koepka was in obvious discomfort, physically and mentally. “It is just really painful,” Koepka explained after cutting round four short on the 12th tee. “It hurts to breathe, to be honest with you. I don’t quit, I am not a quitter and this really pisses me off. Now that I have quit, it feels like I should have done it yesterday. It just gets to the point where I can’t take the pain. “It is not fun to even take steps and walk so walking on the golf course isn’t fun. With the weeks I have coming up, I don’t want to make anything any worse. “I am just hoping to get better, I am off next week anyway so I will just rest. I am going to get a lot of treatment and see how it goes.” Koepka had played through round three with around eight, on-course physiotherapy sessions. He explained how the rib had “popped out” on Saturday before being placed back into position. “Every time someone worked on it, things felt well but when they stopped, it was different again,” he added. “Today, I hit an eight-iron into the 11th out of the rough. I turned to my caddie and said that was the worst pain I have ever had. On the 12th tee it tweaked again and I just dropped to the ground. It hurt so badly I couldn’t really breath properly. “I tweaked the same spot, the same muscle, a year ago. But I wouldn’t say that was anything big at all. Very minor, a day or two kind of sore.” Koepka is scheduled to play the Shell Houston Open in the week immediately preceding the Masters but, given this fitness issue, that now has to be in serious doubt. He had slipped to three over par for the day by the time of his premature exit from Orlando, having started Sunday at five under par. This is unfortunate and untimely. Koepka has enjoyed a meteoric rise since he took the unorthodox approach of learning his professional trade on Europe’s Challenge Tour. Unlike many of his peers, Koepka has shown an obvious ability to win rather than just compete, a trait evident at every level he has competed at. He triumphed at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. Last November, Koepka prevailed at the European Tour’s Turkish Airlines Open. During what became a brief Challenge Tour sojourn, he claimed victory four times. Rickie Fowler’s participation at both Houston and Augusta is more secure. Fowler signed off from Bay Hill with a 69, his lowest round of the tournament, for a seven-under-par total. There was an even better touch from Jason Day on Sunday, the Australian carding a 68 for a minus-nine aggregate. |