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AT&T BYRON NELSONMay 7, 2019Brooks KoepkaIrving, Texas SHARON SHIN: I'd like to welcome Brooks Koepka to the Interview Room at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Brooks is making his fifth start here at this event. Had a runner-up you finish in 2016 and also the current highest FedExCup ranked player in the field. Brooks, if we can just get some comments about playing Trinity. BROOKS KOEPKA: I enjoy this event. Obviously never played this golf course. Watched it a little bit last year so I'll be excited. I like Dallas, it's a fun city and, you know, the fans always done a good job of turning out here and it will be enjoyable to play in front of them. SHARON SHIN: Get some quick comments about your season and how you're feeling. You have a win under your belt in Korea. How are you currently feeling? BROOKS KOEPKA: Started off really nice. Kind of went through a little lull period where I just wasn't putting very good and even with the 2nd place at Honda, didn't feel like I was playing that great but yeah, just went back, started work withing my old putting coach, Jeff Pierce and figured some things out. Feel pretty confident. Augusta was the first week we started working together. It feels good. I'm happy. I'm happy where I'm at and hopefully I'll have a good week this week. SHARON SHIN: We'll open it up for questions. Q. Is this a difficult decision for you to play this week or does this fit into your usual schedule in terms of before a Major? BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah. I mean usually play the week before a Major. I think the Augusta is the only one I don't do it. The rest of them I like to play the week before. You don't need to play that great. I try to get some rhythm. At St. Jude I finished 30th and Firestone 5th one the week after. I like building a little bit of rhythm, finding your game, figuring out how to score, to manage your game and it's just something -- it's worked for me. I think we've looked at stats and usually my second week out is my best week. So, trying to make those for the Majors. Q. On a course like this, are there things that you can work on obviously that can help you? BROOKS KOEPKA: I mean I'm not focused on shots for next week. I'm not focused on anything. I'm here to play this golf course. I'm not trying to manipulate anything. I just -- however I see the shot I'm going to hit it and you're not trying to focus on anything else. You just want to play well here. You're not trying to blow this week off just to make sure you got a shot you might hit 2, 3 times for next week. That doesn't make any sense to me. You go out and play and see how you're hitting it and make adjustments and kind of move on from there. Q. Have you been able to get out on the course at all and first impressions? BROOKS KOEPKA: I have not. I just got in last night. I was up in New York for a couple days and flew in last night. So today will be the first look I get of it. I saw a little bit of it on TV, actually quite a bit of it. I was watching it. I can't tell you too much about it but it looks good from what I saw. Q. What are your thoughts on Tony Romo playing in this? Do you think that's good for the sport or not so great? Do you have any opinion? BROOKS KOEPKA: I mean he's going to bring fans out. I think that's -- I mean I think that's pretty obvious. You know, everybody has always got something to say about some sponsor invite and that's up to the sponsors. They bring in who they want to bring in. It's really nobody else's choice. If they wanted to do something and bring somebody in -- everyone is always criticizing Romo and Steph. That's up to the tournament who they want to bring in. That's their choice and nobody else's. It's fun for us to see those guys and I think if they're going to bring a lot of fans, that's what we need. We keep saying we need to grow the game but the whole object would be to get fans out here. You can criticize it all you want but it's bringing people out here to watch golf and, who knows, they bring their families and kids and might get them started in the game. Q. Brooks, if you could, kind of growing up when you did kind, shed some light on it at all how Tiger influenced your decision to get into the sport and pursue it and, kind of secondly, what it's been like this last year as he's returned to form to be in these fields with him as he's kind of come back? BROOKS KOEPKA: I think everybody in my generation, my age grew up watching him. That's pretty much the whole reason we're all playing. Everybody that's probably 30, 32 and younger, that's all we did was watch him and it was exciting. He's a hell of a player. I don't think anybody has ever questioned that. But the excitement that he brought, the fans, I think that's the reason majority of people are golf fans. I would say 99 percent of the people that show up when he's playing are there to see him. If I wasn't playing and I was a fan that's exactly what I'd be doing. So, it's been good for the sport. It's good to see him back playing well. It's good for everybody. It's good for us. So, we're happy to see it as players and I'm sure everyone else is, too. Q. Brooks, obviously this is your first start since the Masters. When you look back at the Masters now, do you look at it from get a boost out of that being so close or is it one of those kind of "what if", because now that you've got 3 Majors in your pocket getting those chances look back, how do you evaluate that Masters? BROOKS KOEPKA: I thought I played reasonably well. I thought I played -- I was pretty happy with how I played. Obviously I made a lot of mistakes. I made two doubles. It's tough to win if you're going to do that, especially at Augusta. Second place isn't much fun but you move on. I think Tiger made it look closer than it actually was with the final score. All he had to do was bogey the last hole and I'm sure once I missed the putt on 18, you know, that was his thought process, how can I make it from the places that he hit it with the chip he left himself was -- that's what he was going to make, he was going to make 5. If he's making 4, great. He took 6 out of play. That's exactly what he should have done. You know, I missed a couple putts coming in on 17 and 18, just kind of misreads but it happens. Hey, 2nd place you're going to play good but not great. You're not going to win. It's simple as that, especially in a Major. Q. Other than your Photoshop skills, what have you been working on the past month? BROOKS KOEPKA: I didn't even actually -- that wasn't me. That was my boy 6. We got a group of like 12 of us. We were laughing at it and I think he was -- I was told he was doing like 90 down the highway and did that Photoshop. I think that was pretty impressive. I thought it was funny. Q. You work specifically on some things on your game the last few weeks? BROOKS KOEPKA: The first time I touched the club yesterday for the first time since New Orleans. Hit a few you balls at the Friends of Golf Monday and then was up yesterday in New York City hitting -- hit a few golf balls on to a barge. We've been in L.A., Houston, back home for a couple hours and then New York for the weekend. So, it's been a busy week. But, I mean, it doesn't matter. I could care less. I played this game for long enough, 24 years. My swing won't leave me overnight. Q. I know you told Rosy I think it was last month when you found out the event in California you got a text from Tiger saying now you're 1-1 regarding Majors, the last two. What is that dynamic between the two of you going back and forth and how motivating is it for you to have him in the mix and playing well? BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah. That's fun. That's what you want, you want the best players in the world playing well and you want to beat them and, you know, obviously I got the better of him at St. Louis and he got the better of me at Augusta. I mean we don't talk too much. I don't text him very often. He doesn't text me. But that was -- I texted him on the way home on Sunday on the flight home. Just said, "Congrats". That was awesome, fun to see and, as you know, he responded with, "We're 1-1." Hopefully we'll make that 2-1 very shortly. Q. You mentioned earlier about getting into a rhythm the week before a Major. For amateurs that don't have their own rhythm, for a professional player like yourself with Major titles, what is that look and feel like to you? BROOKS KOEPKA: It's just -- I just want to go out and hit the shots the way I see them. They don't need to be perfect. If I'm trying to fade the ball into a flag and maybe overfade it or hit it dead straight, that's fine. That's the miss you want if you're going to hit it dead straight. See shots. Just don't have big misses. I'm okay with making a lot of birdies and then sometimes you make some silly mistakes. You don't make bogies with wedges. Those are easy things to kind of cleanup. I'm not so concerned with the little things, you know, like making bogey from a hundred yards or maybe not getting up and down, going for par-5s, not getting up and down. Mainly just how am I hitting it? I'll be fine, I'll figure out how to putt it. Short game is always pretty good. You might have a bad week. It's mainly, "How am I hitting the ball. Do I feel confident?" If I feel confident hitting the ball, usually kind of rides over into everything else. Q. Finally, I was just talking to Aaron Wise, obviously the defending champ here this week, and he specifically pointed to you as somebody he tries to play as many practice rounds as he can and pick your brain. What do you know about him as a player and what have you tried to pass along to him? BROOKS KOEPKA: I think the first time we played was in the Playoffs last year was the first time we got to play. Super nice kid. Very talented. Just try to tell him just to relax and enjoy it. Lot of things, you try to force things, they're not going to come. It's easier to kind of sit back, relax and let things come to you. It's amazing how often that happens. And you don't need to press it. You don't need to try to win it on Thursday. You don't need to try to win it on the front-9 on Sunday. You just need to hang around. Obviously, he's done a good job of that. He got a win here last year. He's a great player. I saw him, I forget where it was early in the year. I even said to him, "Dude, you put on a lot of weight." He's obviously doing things off the golf course the right way and on the golf course. He's a good player and he's probably a better kid. Q. Just curious, when you come to a course for the first time, how are your preparations different than going to a course that you've played before? BROOKS KOEPKA: I'll spend today just -- I'm just going to play 9 holes and 9 holes tomorrow. The thing I'm focusing on is sight lines, where to hit the ball, where I can miss it off the tee. I think that's important. From there, not really concerned with anything else other than if the pin might be in this position, where is the miss? I kind of work the hole backwards. That's kind of one of my things. My caddy will walk the golf course. I know that. Kind of rely on him this week a little bit more. But once you play it once, I feel like you got a good understanding of where it's at. But it's all about pin locations and angles. I think that's the best way to play it. The pin is on the left, most of the time the miss is on the right. How am I going to give myself a better angle to the right-hand side of the green from the tee box? How am I going to approach it that way? It's easier to kind of work your way back than standing on the tee and try to pick it apart and go from there. Q. Obviously Tiger such a lightning rod but you got three Majors under 30. You feel comfortable or do you see your celebrity status and kind of have to be one of the guys carry the sport forward, things of that nature? BROOKS KOEPKA: I never looked at it that way. I think a lot -- I don't view myself as probably the person that people see me as. Like -- I still think it's kind of funny when -- not funny, but it's kind humbling when you go up and you meet people and they're super nervous. I just don't view myself as what people see me. I just view myself as a regular person. I'm just like everybody else. I'm not -- I wouldn't call myself a superstar but this person where everybody -- I'm inside the ropes, and, "Oh, man, that's Brooks Koepka." I'm just like everybody else. I don't -- I don't see myself in that light but as far as trying to help grow the game, I think that's something -- it's very easy to do. You see it when you do outings and you're working with kids back home, charities, things like that and see -- when you see their faces light up, I mean it's probably the coolest feeling and whatever you say they kind of -- they listen to everything. It's fun and, you know, hopefully, you can pass some advice to them because I mean you see it now on the kids that I've grown up with, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, guys that I've played golf with for the last 15 years, feels like there's 30, 40 of them out here playing on the Tour. So you do have that responsibility as one of the best players in the world to kind of help them, kind of pass the torch, I guess. SHARON SHIN: Thank you for your time and good luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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