Brooks Koepka, 'No one ever has the balls to actually penalize' Slow Play

Since I’m on the “Brooks Koepka should share all of his thoughts on the state of golf” train, I present you with another great opinion from the three-time major champion.

Koepka recently criticized the slow play of Bryson DeChambeau when he said, “I just don’t understand how it takes a minute and 20 seconds, or a minute and 15 to hit a golf ball — it’s not that hard.” Then we heard more from him on the “Playing Through” podcast where he said of Sergio Garcia’s antics at the Saudi International, “You’re 40-years-old so you gotta grow up eventually.”

Koepka, who was in New York for some PGA Championship obligations, spoke to Danny Kanell on Sirius XM radio and once again addressed pace of play and he didn’t hold back.

"“It is frustrating. There’s a lot of slow players, a lot of them are kind of the very good players, too, which is kind of the problem. I think it’s weird how we have rules where we have to make sure it’s dropping from knee height or the caddie can’t be behind you and then they also have a rule where you have to hit it in 40 seconds, but that one’s not enforced. You enforce some but you don’t enforce the others. “Usually, if you’re put on the clock it’s ’cause you’re slow, and guys keep being put on the clock, keep doing it, keep doing it but no one ever has the balls to actually penalize them.”"

Spot on!

Koepka even went as far as to say that he has intentionally done things during tournaments to get his group put on the clock so that the guys he’s grouped with speed up.

"“I kind of – this is probably bad to say – but I’ve kind of got a different approach. I try to slow us down, which is part of the problem. “Some of these guys are so slow, I’ll take my sweet time getting to the ball. I don’t have to go to the bathroom, go to the restroom and just kind of chill in there for five minutes, so we get on the clock, and now we’re playing at my pace. “It’s probably not the right thing, but it is what I do. If this happens for two holes, we play slow for two holes, the other 16 we get to play at my pace.”"

This is quite refreshing. Finally, there’s a player who isn’t holding back when it comes to pace of play. There’s no reason that it should take six hours for a group of professionals to play 18 holes of golf, but that happens quite often. I can understand slow play if you’re coming down the stretch of a major championship, but on a Thursday during a regular event, speed it up.

Koepka has become quite outspoken after winning a second consecutive U.S. Open and then adding a PGA Championship win to his name in 2018 and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

I wonder if he’ll hear from the PGA Tour for this.