AUGUSTA, Ga. — Just days prior, the scuttlebutt around the PGA Tour was that Brooks Koepka wouldn’t have the option to play the Masters, yet he may be out for an all-inclusive timeframe due to a correct knee injury that constrained him to pull out from the Players Championship a month ago and required late a medical procedure.
However late Sunday evening at Augusta National soon after the club’s yearly Drive Chip and Putt rivalry was finished, the 30-year-old Koepka was playing a four-opening circle with his caddie, Ricky Elliott close behind.
Thereafter, he addressed a little gathering of journalists and said, explicitly, that he’ll be playing the Masters this week.
“In the event that I realized I planned to complete second, I wouldn’t have appeared,” Koepka said, diverting his inward Tiger Woods. “Along these lines, I have an inclination that I can win.”
The four-time significant title champ, who is positioned tweleth in the world, said he endured a disengaged knee cap and had March 16 medical procedure to reattach a tendon and “clean up whatever had broken off from the knee cap.”
Koepka has been obscure about how he really supported the injury, revealing to Golfweek three weeks prior, “An accident happened while I was with my family over the weekend.”
Depicting the injury on Sunday, Koepka said he “slipped and slowly went to the ground.”
“When you look down and your leg is kind of going that way and your knee’s that way, you kind of go, ‘Whoa, holy crap, Koepka said. “I went and got an MRI the next day [a Monday]. We got the results and made a plan.”
That arrangement was to do all that could be within reach to get back on schedule to play the Masters, yet even Koepka yielded that felt ridiculous at that point.
“Right away, I was like, ‘There’s no chance,’ when you’re in the brace and [the knee is] all wrapped up,” Koepka said. “I don’t think anybody expected [such a quick recovery]. We were hopeful that we were going to be here at Augusta, but you never know. I talked to ‘Doc’ and we said the goal was to play Augusta, so he was going to do [the surgery] and see if we can play … and here we are.”
Koepka, who said he’s been rehabbing seven hours every day, said he was hitting balls six or seven days after medical procedure. In the previous week and a half, he said he’s strolled and played nine two or multiple times at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, where he was rehabbing.
“I’ve walked enough,’’ Koepka said. “We’ve been building up for this. Now it’s just about managing the hills and trying to find the flattest routes [to walk].”
Koepka was sidelined for a quarter of a year subsequent to harming his left knee slipping at the CJ Cup in South Korea in 2019. At that point, making up for that knee prompted a labrum injury in his left hip, and all the more as of late he has had firmness in his neck.
This most recent injury came when he had rediscovered his structure, winning the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February and tying for second in the WGC-Workday Championship.
Koepka wrapped sprinter up to Tiger Woods at the 2019 Masters and completed tied for seventh last November.
Inquired as to whether there’s any uncertainty he’ll play this week after how he felt Sunday, Koepka said, “Gracious, I’ll play. I’ll be OK.”
