Brooks Koepka has sounded off on rule breaking in the game – including the Patrick Reed incident from a few months ago.
In a town hall interview this week on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, Koepka said that Patrick Reed knew what he was doing when he was “building sand castles” in the bunker at the Hero World Challenge.
When asked by host Sway Calloway if Reed was cheating when he improved his lie, Koepka said: “Yeah. I don’t know what he was doing, building sand castles in the sand. But you know where your club is. I took three months off and I can promise you I know if I touch sand. If you look at the video, obviously he grazes the sand twice and then he still chops down on it.”
Koepka compared the Reed situation to the Astros sign-stealing scandal and said that there’s “no room” in the game for intentional rule breaking. He said that most rules infractions are difficult to prove, unless the players are caught on camera.
In fact, during a U.S. Open (he didn’t specify which year), Koepka said that he watched one of his fellow playing competitors blow a drive right, into 6-inch rough. He saw that player take out a 3-wood and pat down the thick rough behind the ball, only to then grab a wedge and hack the ball out 60 yards down the fairway. Koepka looked at the other player in his group and said, “This ain’t right.”
“It goes on a little bit more than people think,” he said, before adding: “I’ve been guilty of it. I haven’t opened my mouth. But now if I saw it, just because of where I’m at in the game, the stature that I have, I would definitely say something.”
