THE 149TH OPEN

July 18, 2021

Brooks Koepka

Mixed Zone

Q. Joined by Brooks Koepka. Great round today. On the face of it it's a good week. Really probably a top 5 finish. I'm just wondering how you assess a week like this? Do you see it as like a solid performance or a missed opportunity?

BROOKS KOEPKA: Definitely a missed opportunity. Didn't play good enough Saturday. Doesn't really matter what I finished today. I didn't have a chance to win. That's disappointing.

Would've like to have the one on 18, birdie the par-5, 14 on the back, and, you know, 10 lipped out. But played solid today. Can't complain. Just wish I could have yesterday back.

Q. I was going to ask some similar enough there. Apart from that, how did you find the week overall? What was it like with the galleries and the fans and how are you looking forward to the rest of the season, the Olympics, Ryder Cup, et cetera?

BROOKS KOEPKA: I'm not playing the Olympics so I'm not really looking forward to missing that. Yeah, I mean, it's always nice. I like coming over here and playing links golf. It's always a bunch of fun, and I've always said that it's the one tournament a year where the fans actually know what a good shot is.

You could be 200 yards out and hit it 30 feet and they know there is a slope there you can't miss it. Let's say it's left and you got to hit it 30 feet to the right and they know that's where you're aiming and they understand a good golf shot and they understand a good round.

So it's always fun to play in front of them.

Q. You seem to raise your game or at least be challenging at every single major you take part in. What do you put that down to?

BROOKS KOEPKA: I don't know, I like these weeks. I like when it's tough. I like when everything is on the line. I like when the most pressure is on. I enjoy that. I think it's fun.

It's exciting for me. I think something just clicks, focus, just understanding where to hit golf shots. It's always -- those are fun weeks for me. This week I mean I wouldn't call it I competed. It was more of a back-door Top 10 maybe, so wasn't the best.

Q. What didn't click yesterday?

BROOKS KOEPKA: Probably just the iron play. I was pulling shots with my irons just making poor swings. We talked about it a little bit of it was just maybe a little bit of alignment. It's always something simple with me. It's never really like swing mechanics or anything like that.

It's always setup. So I got lined up a little right and usually when I do that, believe it or not, I tend to pull it knowing that the target is left. And just missed some shots where you can't miss them, just some poor swings.

Then all week except for today I felt like I struggled getting the ball to the hole. Today I told myself no matter what I was going to get it to the hole. Didn't care if I three-putted, but the ball was going to get to the hole.