Koepka: ‘I don’t know if my knee will ever fully heal’
Brooks Koepka gave a surprising update on his injury problems at the Genesis Invitational
After setting the world alight with four majors in 23 months Brooks Koepka has had a torrid time of late.
It all started in October when he said he had spent most of the previous year playing with a knee injury that eventually required stem-cell surgery following the Tour Championship.
Koepka missed the cut at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open not long after, and the following week withdrew from the CJ Cup, where he was defending, after slipping on some wet concrete.
The freak incident re-aggravated the injury and he was nowhere to be seen again until he popped up in the Middle East for lucrative appearances at the Abu Dhabi Championship and Saudi International, where he finished tied for 34th and 17th respectively.
- Related: What’s in Koepka’s bag?
- Related: Where is Koepka playing in 2020?
Next up, the Genesis Invitational and his first competitive action on home soil since the Shriners. After scraping inside the cut line at Riviera, Koepka was asked just how well he is getting on with his recovery – and his answer was more concerning than we might have expected.
“It was a lot worse than we let on,” Koepka told Golf Channel. “I had a tear in the top and bottom of the patella and the kneecap had moved sideways and was going into the fat pad which was a lot of pain.
“I’m nowhere near 100 per cent, I don’t know if my knee will ever be 100 per cent. It’s one of those things where I’m just trying every day.
“To be honest with you, Monday [at Riviera] was the most pain I’ve had since I tore it. You have good days and you have bad days and you’ve just got to really watch it.
“Now it feels stable though. I don’t feel like my knee, when I’m walking, [is] going to go out to the left or go inside on me. It feels stable. It’s just strengthening things. But there’s still pain there.”
Koepka knows how frustrating it is to miss big events with injury – he didn’t make the 2018 Masters with a wrist problem before going on to win both the US Open and PGA Championship that year – so he’ll be wary of causing further damage to his knee as he prepares to go one better than last year’s tied-2nd at Augusta in April.
Follow NCG on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Alex Perry
Alex has been the editor of National Club Golfer since 2017. A Devonian who enjoys wittering on about his south west roots, Alex moved north to join NCG after more than a decade in London, the last five of which were with ESPN. Away from golf, Alex follows Torquay United and spends too much time playing his PlayStation or his guitar and not enough time practising his short game.
