Brooks Koepka unleashes furious tirade at slow golfers on PGA Tour

Brooks Koepka and Tiger Woods discuss the issues with slow play on the PGA Tour, and what needs to be done to improve it...

Andy Roberts's picture
Thu, 8 Aug 2019
Brooks Koepka unleashes furious tirade at slow golfers on PGA Tour

Another week on the PGA Tour, and the world's best player Brooks Koepka is firing another tirade at the slowest players. 

The outspoken four-time major champion expressed yet more frustration at the slow coaches on Tour ahead of this week's Northern Trust, where he starts tournament favourite. Already this season Koepka has called out Bryson DeChambeau and JB Holmes for their slow-play antics. 

"I think it's just gotten out of hand," Koepka told the media at Liberty National.

"It seems now that there are so many sports psychologists and everybody telling everybody that they can't hit it until they're ready; that you have to fully process everything. I mean, I take 15 seconds and go, and I've done all right. So I don't understand why they're taking a minute and a half."

Koepka believes the slowest players are looking into too many details before hitting just about every shot they face on the course - especially when they have already had time to calculate these decisions during their Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds. 

"Sometimes they might be trying to decide what club to hit," said the World No.1.

"Well, you've had a day to think about it, and it's pretty clear what the tee shot is. I mean, I just don't get—a lot of times it's on the simpler shots. The difficult ones, you already know what to do with it, but it's the simpler ones where guys seem to take their time."

In the eyes of Koepka, it is now time for rules officials to take action. 

"What I don't understand is, if I hit in the water, I have to take a penalty stroke. It's in the rule book," Koepka said.

"And then you have 40 seconds to hit a shot. That's in the rule book, too. ... They're all in the rule book. So figure it out and penalise somebody.

Koepka then summarised everything perfectly. 

"I mean, five and a half hours to play golf is a long time," he said.

"Everybody's going to get bored."

Tiger Woods may have limited his Wednesday practice round due to stiffness, but he also addressed his thoughts on slow play with the media.

"We've had guys—I'm not going to mention any names here, OK. ... But we've had guys that have played with slow players, that will play slow on purpose to put them on the clock, so the group will play fast," said Woods.

"They want to play fast. And that's their version of combatting slow play is they will play even slower.

"We can only go as fast as the group in front of us goes," Woods said.

"It's important that the first group goes out and sets the pace, because as you know, the times get slower as you go on, and if the first group goes out slow or has rulings, hits the ball bad, it just logjams everyone behind them."