Brooks Koepka criticised over public fallout with his LIV Golf team-mate
LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka has been criticised for his handling of his astonishing fallout with Smash GC teammate Matthew Wolff.
Koepka left professional golf in shock in July, after the American slammed Wolff in a brutal rant. The five-time major champion hit out at his fellow American's commitment on the golf course, and went as far as to claim that the 25-year-old's talent had been 'wasted'.
He told Sports Illustrated: "I mean, when you quit on your round, you give up and stuff like that, that's not competing. I'm not a big fan of that. You don't work hard. It's very tough. It's very tough to have even like a team dynamic when you've got one guy that won't work, one guy is not going to give any effort, he’s going to quit on the course, break clubs, gets down, bad body language, it's very tough.
"I've basically given up on him—a lot of talent, but I mean the talent's wasted.” Wolff himself was quick to respond to the criticism, admitting that he was left 'heartbroken' by his captain's ruthless assessment of his form.
"I read the SI [Sports Illustrated] interview with our captain Brooks Koepka and it was beyond disappointing to me," he told Sports Illustrated. "When I chose to join his Team in 2023, I did so with much optimism about my new home as part of Team Smash and equally as important the chance to be around and learn from a player of Brooks’s stature.
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"Like everyone who has ever played the game at the highest level, I have had competitive moments in the past that I feel I have let myself down and even others in our new team environment... My challenges on and off the golf course with my mental health has been well documented. I deal with those challenges every day. However, while my 2023 season has not been all I had hoped for to this point...
Brooks Koepka hit out at Matt Wolff ahead of LIV London in July (AP)"It’s not what a team member looks to hear from its leader, and I think we all know these comments should have been handled much differently." Two months on from Koepka's slamming, the Smash GC has been criticised for his handling of the situation by one of Wolff's closest allies. The American's coach George Gankas believes Koepka's dressing down of his man should have been kept out of the public eye.
“They could’ve done that privately,” Gankas told No Laying Up. “There were some incidents where Wolff possibly wasn’t playing as hard as he could and he called him out on it and, you know what, in my opinion, as much as anybody doesn’t want to hear it, I don’t think it should have been done publicly."
Since the spat Wolff has seen some improvement in his game, matching his best finish of the campaign with a top-five finish at LIV Greenbrier last month. And his coach believes the criticism has done him some good. Gankas added: "I think it did Wolff good. I think it woke him up.”
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