Four-time Major winner Brooks Koepka says despite having surgery on his right knee in March, he still has a long way to go to full recovery.
The 31-year-old American will tee off in one of the featured groups at this week’s PGA Championship where the burden of another injury looms over his expected performance.
Two-time winner of the PGA Championship, Koepka carries high hopes into the year’s second Major but knows he is far off from competing at his best.
‘Every day has been a long day,’ Koepka said Tuesday, while preparing at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island.
‘Starting from just training to the rehab, everything seems to take an hour, hour and a half longer. More attention to detail of what I’m doing off the golf course.
‘I seem to get hurt in a bunch of freaky instances. It’s just one of those things where you’ve just got to move past it and take it one day at a time.’
Koepka suffered ligament damage and a dislocated right knee-cap after slipping and falling, while having time off with family in Florida. The injury required surgery, which was conducted successfully on 16 March.
Koepka, though, surprised many people when he arrived at Augusta National only a few weeks later to compete at the Masters, but still clearly in a lot of discomfort.
He struggled around the famous course and in the end failed to make the cut for the weekend but, according to Koepka, it was just about showing up and competing.
‘It didn’t set me back. I was fine,’ he added.
‘Just for my own satisfaction, I wanted to play. I was determined to do it. That was the goal all along. I was able to do it. Obviously I didn’t play the way I wanted to. It’s not fun when you can’t do the thing you know you’re capable of, but just to be out there, it was mentally satisfying.
‘Nobody knows what I went through for those four weeks. Every time I was doing something, I just envisioned myself playing at Augusta. Like I said, what was it, like a week and a half in trying to ride a bike backwards and you can’t go around the cycle. It takes a lot of heart just to do it, but that was the goal.’
Koepka will tee off alongside past PGA champions Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas on Thursday and Friday.
