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THE NORTHERN TRUST

August 24, 2018

Brooks Koepka

Paramus, New Jersey

Q. Can you go over the last through holes? Start with birdies.
BROOKS KOEPKA: To make birdie on the short par 4 -- yeah, hit it in the bunker. Hit a great 3-wood there and then, you know, great bunker shot and made birdie. And then that par 5, tried to swing as hard as I could on the driver and then something clicked in my golf swing hitting that 3-wood.

I felt like I couldn't turn the ball over, or I was fading it maybe a little bit more than I would have liked. To be honest with you, I wasn't happy the first 11 holes the way I hit it. When I hit that 3-wood, it all clicked. I felt like I was finally able to release the golf club. Just tried to hit it as hard as I could, big draw. Aimed at the tree on the right and tried to draw it back to the flag. When I did that, everything started to click, other than the fat wedge shot on the next hole. But other than that -- I really hit it well coming in.

Q. What did you hit in, for example, 15, 16, 17, 18?
BROOKS KOEPKA: Let's see, 18 was pitched a little three-quarter pitching wedge.

17, just 3-iron.

16 was a little sand wedge.

And the other one was just a fat sand wedge just short -- no. The par 3 was just a pitching wedge, perfect pitching wedge. When you've got those clubs coming in, you feel like you've got a good opportunity, especially when you put it in the fairway and you've got ball-in-hand.

Q. What's your frustration level through 11 holes -- going forward from that.
BROOKS KOEPKA: No, I felt like it was going to click soon. I'm confident, even with not -- I wasn't playing poorly, let's put it that way. Just wasn't how I would like to see it, how I would like to see the golf ball fly. Just had a little too much cut on it and I felt like I couldn't really start it down the left-hand side. I had to aim a little bit further left than I would have liked, and once the release kicked in, I felt like the toe head actually released. It was fun to play the last few holes.

Q. Did you look at 13, standing on that tee -- is it a two-shot five?
BROOKS KOEPKA: No. I don't think of it as anything. You know, I'm just trying to hit the best shot I can. I try to keep it so simple.

I don't know what it was to the hole. I think it was like 278 front. We paced it, they said 290, Rickie said.

Q. Irish math?
BROOKS KOEPKA: So I mean, it was -- one, two, skip-a-few with him. I hit it about as hard as I could. I mean, I couldn't have hit a better shot, and even Jimmy was like, wow, that was impressive, because Rickie called it right in the air off the tee, drawing right to the 13 sign.

Q. How often do you say, I made that shot, I made contact --
BROOKS KOEPKA: A lot more often than people think. You know, when you get out on the golf course, you're just trying to build a rhythm and sometimes it doesn't always go as perfectly planned as you'd like, and then you make one good golf swing, and all of a sudden you've got that feeling, you've got that rhythm and then you can build off that and that's kind of what happened today. I mean, it happens, I would say, maybe twice during a tournament, or twice in a month, I guess you could say. You know, if you're not hitting it perfect, it happens quite a lot.

Q. Did it happen at Bellerive or Shinnecock?
BROOKS KOEPKA: No, I showed up to Firestone hitting it about as good as I could have. Best I've hit it as a professional. I just putted like a dog.

Then, you know, I just worked on some things with my putting. Make sure my head wasn't going back. Trying to keep my head a little more stable, and then the putter clicked and it's clicked ever since.

Q. When it clicks like that, do you feel like you can just ride it for a while?
BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah, if I've got the feeling, I feel like I've got it for a long time and I can keep it going, because I think people don't realize, I've simplified the game so much. There's no swing thought. There's no anything. I'm not trying to work on anything while I'm out there. I'm just trying to hit the correct shot, and it's always between two clubs. You just try to figure out, miss short or miss long. I think guys over-complicate it a lot.

Q. Are you suggesting it's easy --
BROOKS KOEPKA: It is easy, but I mean, even when it's not the best and when you're not playing the best, I still make it very simple. It's the yardage and you're trying to hit that yardage, that's it. Keep it right of the flag. Keep it left of the flag, short, long. You're just trying to play position.

You know, if you don't hit the best shot, I'm not trying to mis-hit in a bad spot, so I'm not going to get to angry, and you just keep rolling with it.

Q. Can you see it in your playing partners --
BROOKS KOEPKA: You can tell by the reaction. A lot of guys, when they overreact, it's because they are trying too hard and they have over-complicated it a little bit and sometimes the simple shots are really what get people. It's just a little three-quarter wedge or whatever it might be, and then don't think anything else of it. You know, sometimes they are working on flight, and it's like, it's not really blowing that hard. It's just a perfect three-quarter wedge, and the simpler you can make it, the easier it is.

Q. The simple thought is with awareness?
BROOKS KOEPKA: The what?

Q. The simple thought is with high awareness?
BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah, I mean, I know what's up there, where the miss is, that's already equated into the club we've chosen. You look at it like a 140 shot, it's pretty simple. It's just a three-quarter wedge.

The trouble, if it's blowing a little into you, you might chip a little 9 or something like that and see where it goes, but you're always aware of what's going on, but you just make it very simple.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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