PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – It is not easy these days to get Brooks Koepka’s numbers.
“I just changed my phone number,” Koepka said Tuesday at The Players Championship. “Basically (it’s) just my family and anybody related to golf (that) has my number now. It’s been kind of cool.”
However, there is little question in this week’s Players Championship as to who – or, more accurately, what – BEN you have Koepka’s number: famous island-green 17.
Despite a prolific career as the best big-game hunter of golf’s modern era, Koepka has endured an unusual stretch as the most tortured golfer in the recent history of the island green.
“The 17th hole,” he said with a smile, when asked about the biggest challenge at TPC Sawgrass. “I don’t know if there’s a stat for it, but I guarantee there is. One year I made an 8 and a 7. Yeah, that wasn’t very good. But that 17th hole has haunted me over the years. I’ve played good rounds here; that’s kind of the bugaboo that always gets me.”
Bugaboo may be an understatement. According to PGA Tour ShotLink AccountingKoepka has played the hole almost a full stroke over par for his career, including nine water balls and a pair of 7s in just nine attempts. (For better or worse, Koepka’s bad memories of the hole may work together: He never recorded an 8.)
The 17th has a well-documented history as a factory of nightmares, but the five-time major champion says he’s not up to it. The stage of the procedure still.
“No, I don’t think about it,” Koepka said. “It doesn’t follow me. I mean my friends, they give me a bunch of crap about it. Between 17 and 12 at Augusta, they seem to be par-3s.”
As Koepka noted Tuesday, at least one of those high scores could turn into bad luck on a seriously windy day in 2022.
“I think the last time we played here, I think I hit the 5-iron on the hole,” he said with a laugh. “It was the year it was blowing like crazy. Somebody hit a 6-iron, I think, and it came up short, so I hit a 5, then it went. I mean, it’s kind of hard to argue when it’s blowing 35.”
That said, the poor conditions haven’t stopped Koepka’s teammates from putting on their pound of flesh.
“Yeah, my friends beat me to it pretty good,” he said. “But it’s in the past. Nothing I can do about it. But I hit the greens yesterday, so I was pretty worried about it.”
