Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka has fallen back in love with “the grind” of PGA Tour life. He also feels “in complete control” of his game, both of which should worry his fellow Tour players as the season careens toward the summer.

Unlike many of the stars who contended at last week’s PGA Championship (with the exceptions of Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth), Koepka is taking no time off following the second major of the year. He’s teeing it up at this week’s 2026 CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

Due to the penalties he accepted to enable his PGA Tour return, Koepka needs to play whenever he’s eligible as he tries to work his way up the FedEx Cup rankings to qualify for the PGA Tour’s biggest events.

It’s a big departure from his years with LIV Golf, where Koepka only had to worry about qualifying for majors.

But along with providing updates on his game and the PGA Tour grind during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, Koepka also revealed one way in which the PGA Tour players have a “huge advantage” over their LIV Golf counterparts.

Brooks Koepka reveals ‘newfound love’ in PGA Tour return: ‘Enjoying the grind’

This week’s CJ Cup Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch represents the 11th start of Koepka’s surprising PGA Tour return, made possible through the newly formed (and short-lived) Returning Member Program.

A big catch in Koepka’s deal was that he could not accept sponsor’s exemptions into Signature Events this year. If he wants to play in the Tour’s biggest tournaments, he has to play his way in.

“Every week is a new fresh start for me, and I’m obviously with my penalty I’m not allowed to play every event, and if I get the chance to tee up, I want to play,” Koepka said on Wednesday in Texas.

As the season has advanced, Koepka’s worked his way closer and closer to the Signature Event promised land. He earned a top 10 at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches in February and put up solid finishes at the Players Championship (T13), the Masters (T12) and at the ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic (T11), which was contested the same week as the Truist Championship, a Signature Event.

That’s moved him up to 69th in the FedEx Cup standings. The top 50 automatically qualify for all Signature Events, and Koepka is just a few spots away from the Aon Next 10, another pathway into those tournaments.

Rather than complain about having to grind it out like a Tour rookie, though, Koepka revealed that he’s “fallen back in love” with the experience.

“I’ve mentioned it a couple times, I’ve kind of fallen back in love with this. I’m enjoying the grind. I’m enjoying battling it out here,” Koepka said on Wednesday. “Yeah, it’s just a newfound love, a newfound passion for the game, and something that I’m really, really enjoying being back on the road and grinding it out and trying to find it in the dirt. I think there’s something to be said about that.”

He added: “Each week is becoming more and more fun, and I very much enjoy that.”

His increasingly solid results help with that, no doubt. According to Koepka, his improved finishes are a direct result of his game rounding into form.

“I’m driving the ball fantastic. I feel like I’m in complete control. Ever since Augusta, where we noticed the setting was at B1 and we switched it back to A1 on that driver, I can work it both ways. The flight’s very, very good. Iron play’s been fantastic,” Koepka said. “I feel like I’m in complete control of my golf ball — shape, spin, trajectory, everything seems to be right where I need it to be. It’s just a matter of rolling those putts in.”

With another high finish this week, Koepka could finally gain access to the Signature Events. But even if he doesn’t, he’s already qualified for next month’s most important tournament: the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Koepka, a two-time U.S. Open champion, captured his second title at Shinnecock in 2018.

Koepka says gear access on PGA Tour superior to LIV: ‘Sometimes I wasn’t privy’

The “grind” is not the only thing Koepka is enjoying about his PGA Tour return. On Wednesday, he also shared another way his life on Tour is better than his time on LIV Golf: equipment.

Specifically, Koepka explained that his access to new equipment on the PGA Tour, for testing purposes and mid-tournament adjustments, is far better than his gear access was at LIV Golf events.

“Yeah, it’s totally different, like I said, just being able to see all the different — just to have so many options, it’s maybe a little bit overwhelming, at the same time, because access to equipment trucks, grip changes, things like that, sometimes I wasn’t privy to over the last four, five years. During majors was kind of the only time you saw it,” Koepka revealed.

He continued: “So to be back out here and have the opportunity to if you need to make a slight change in something, it’s a whole lot easier, or you damage a club during play, to get a replacement, a shaft change, whatever it might be.”

He went on to describe the PGA Tour equipment treatment as a “huge advantage” over LIV Golf.

“Just more access to everything, I think, has been a huge advantage,” he said. “I’m not going to do too much of that. I know I keep changing the putter pretty much every week now, but as far as the rest of the equipment that I have, I’m very satisfied with it. I’m very, very pleased with it.”

As to whether other LIV Golf players have called Koepka for advice on making the transition back to the PGA Tour, Koepka said no. The reason? He changed his phone number.

“I changed my number a while ago, so I don’t think many guys have my number, which is great,” Koepka said. “So I haven’t had to worry about too much of that.”

If you’ve been pining for a break from the slog of stroke-play events on the PGA Tour schedule, this is your week.

On Thursday, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans kicks off at TPC Louisianna, with self-selected two-man teams playing four-ball in the first and third rounds, and foursomes in the second and final rounds. Most of the squads’ origin stories don’t require much explanation: Matt and Alex Fitzpatrck? Brothers! Jacob Skov Olesen and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen? Fellow Danes! Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak? Defending champions! But there is at least one partnership that might give you pause: Brooks Koepka and . . . Shane Lowry?

Lowry gets it.

“To the outside it might not look like it makes sense,” he said from the tournament Wednesday, his odd-couple partner by his side, “but, you know, to us it does.” 

It might appear nonsensical because we’re more accustomed to seeing Lowry and Koepka locking horns than we are leaning on one another. They’ve never gone head-to-head in a Ryder Cup match, but they have twice played in the same Ryder Cup, including in the contentious edition outside Rome in 2023. That was the week when Day 2 of the matches culminated with Lowry and other Europeans chirping Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, on the 18th green. That tension spilled into the parking lot where Lowry had to hold back McIlroy from berating Justin Thomas’s caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay — and yet more ugliness back at the team hotel where McIlroy allegedly got into it with Koepka’s caddie, Ricky Elliott.

None of this is to say that Lowry has ever harbored any beef with Koepka or vice versa, but given the history between their camps (or at least their continents), it’s still surprising on some level to see them syncing up.

Thing is, though, Ryder Cup rivalries can evaporate quickly under the warm South Florida sun, especially in the Jupiter Island area where palms trees are outnumbered only by multimillionaire Tour pros. Patrol the Bear’s Club, Medalist or Old Palm on any Tuesday morning during an off-week and you’re likely to spot a cluster of brand-name pros from both sides of the Atlantic enjoying one another’s company, if not taking one another’s money.

“Everybody plays the same golf courses, so we see each other pretty much every other day,” Koepka said Wednesday. “I don’t go a day without seeing a guy out here, so there’s always conversations. There’s always people talking, having lunch, doing whatever, practicing together. It happens way more frequently than I think people realize.”

Also on the list of popular Tour-pro hangs in the neighborhood is Michael Jordan’s swank club, Grove XXIII, which is where Lowry and Koepka played a round together a few months back — and where Lowry popped the question.

“I said to him, ‘I might need a partner for New Orleans’” Lowry said. “He goes, ‘Well, I’m going to have to play there.’ That was it.”

Lowry played with McIlroy in the previous two Zurichs (they won together in 2024), but when McIlroy bowed out of this year’s edition, Lowry needed a date. Koepka, meanwhile, just needed starts. Since his January return from LIV Golf to the PGA Tour, he has lacked the necessary FedEx points to qualify for the Signature Events; he’s hopeful, with Lowry’s help, to improve his status this week.

Lowry and Koepka’s relationship extends beyond the borders of South Florida. They first got to know each other in 2012 and ’13 when Koepka was cutting his teeth on the DP World Tour. Lowry has known Elliot, Koepka’s looper, for even longer. When Lowry won the Open Championship in 2019, Elliott, who is from Portrush, was among a swell of well-wishers waiting to congratulate Lowry by the 18th green.

A few weeks after Lowry and Koepka’s round at the Grove, Lowry texted a follow-up note to both Elliott and Koepka to make sure they were still on for the Zurich. But Lowry said he didn’t have a firm commitment from Koepka until he ran into him several weeks later.

“I said, ‘Are we going to tee it up in New Orleans?’” Lowry said. “He said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

The betting sharpies like Lowry and Koepka’s chances this week, setting their odds only behind favorites Matt Fitzpatrick, who has won twice in the last month, and his brother Alex, who won the DP World Tour’s Hero Indian Open last month. And on paper Lowry and Koepka do look like a good fit.

Lowry is accurate off the tee and can work the ball in both directions. (“My job is to try and hit it in the fairway,” Lowry said.) Koepka’s iron play is nearly unrivaled (he’s 2nd in SG: Approaches). And Lowry has been holing putts (31st in SG: Putting).

The setup suits their eyes, too. “I like the way we’re going with him hitting off certain holes and me hitting off the other holes,” Koepka said. “Everybody feels comfortable on the holes that we’re going to play.” Koepka added, ”Then the best-ball side of this whole thing, he’s been playing great, so just let him go do him and stay out of the way.”

Lowry feels pretty good about his partner, too.

“He’s Brooks Koepka” Lowry said. “He’s got five majors. You know what I mean?”

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Brooks Koepka just wanted to get the ball in the hole, and that’s led to one of the most notable gear switches in the five-time major champion’s career.

After more than a decade playing a Scotty Cameron Teryllium blade, Koepka made a last-minute switch to a new TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-neck this week at the WM Phoenix Open.

Koepka, playing his second event this week since coming back to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf, was searching on the greens at Torrey Pines a week ago. He was last in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting among those who made the cut. He lost more than seven strokes on the greens in the three rounds with Shot Link Data.

To help, Koepka actually made a weekend visit to the Scotty Cameron Gallery in nearby Encinitas for a practice session with Scotty Cameron’s director of Player Fitting and Development, Paul Vizanko.

Koepka and Vizanko were at it again on Monday at TPC Scottsdale, working for hours on Koepka’s putting.

“Trying to get the ball in the hole,” Koepka said candidly on Wednesday of the Monday session. “Yeah, like, just really never felt comfortable over the ball. You’ve got to have everything squared up to the target. Just working on things like that. Real simple stuff, setup. Shoulders were open. My feet are always a little bit open, but just trying to minimize the lines crossing so much.

“I’ve been putting pretty poorly for the good side of two years. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got to figure it out.”

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What wasn’t apparent on Monday or even during Wednesday’s pro-am was that a change was imminent. Koepka had four putters with him on Monday: his gamer Scotty Cameron T22 Teryllium Newport 2, an identical backup and two TaylorMade Spider Tour X mallets. One Spider had a short slant hosel while the other had an L-neck like his Camerons.

Koepka has used the T22 for the better part of the past five years, since 2020, shortly after the model was released in late 2019 as an homage to Scotty Cameron’s first Teryllium putters. It replaced a T10 Newport 2 dating to Koepka’s college days at Florida State that featured a button-back design, as opposed to the silicone dots to hold the insert in place.

He’s toyed around with blades before, most notably gaming a Scotty Cameron Phantom X T5.5 at the 2024 Masters, but the Newport 2 blade always seems to return to the bag.

Even on Wednesday, Koepka used the Cameron during his pro-am, and the gamer was the only putter in his bag afterward when he was back on the putting green.

But later that afternoon, Koepka told Golfweek‘s Eamon Lynch he was switching this week to the Spider Tour X. Not only does the Spider Tour X mark a departure to a more forgiving mallet from his blade, but it’s also the first putter Koepka has used in his career without a milled face.

Koepka went with the L-neck Spider Tour X, the same model Scottie Scheffler switched to in 2024 and has since won 14 PGA Tour titles and 16 events worldwide, including the American Express two weeks ago. The Spider was also the winningest putter family on the PGA Tour last season, racking up 13 victories during the FedEx Cup season by seven players.

Through 12 holes on Thursday, Koepka didn’t exactly seem like he’s found the same magic as Scheffler as he was four over for the day and losing two strokes on the greens, 119th in the 123-player field.

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No golf event is more soaked in alcohol than the WM Phoenix Open, the annual warmup act to (no copyright issue here!) the big game. Coors Light is a tournament sponsor. So is Jack Daniel’s; Don Julio tequila; LaMarca Prosecco wine; and Tito’s vodka. To this scene, we add (for the first time in few years) Brooks Koepka, with his fullback’s physique and his Michelob Ultra sponsorship. He won in Phoenix in 2021. He T3ed there in 2022. Nobody would be surprised to see him contend. The Brooks Koepka comeback tour.

Last week was a dress rehearsal. In San Diego, we saw nervous Brooks, making his return to the PGA Tour after going LIV for a three-year stint, one short of his contracted length. It was weird, in this debut, to see this jockiest of golfing men not own the space around him. But there’s something subdued about the Farmers Insurance Open, the Torrey Pines courses dwarfed by the Pacific Ocean, morning fog acting like a muffler on the whole enterprise. 

Phoenix is nothing like it. The tourney there is boozy. Fan and player alike is uninhibited. Ballplayers thrive there. The guess here is that BK 2.0 is going to start looking a lot like the OG edition, the one we know and know. He might not be ready to win yet, and he didn’t win anywhere in the world last year. But he’ll sashay his way around the course in his old familiar way. He’ll be among his people. All that beer-and-football energy.

This is a whole new thing for the PGA Tour, the returning golfer after an enriching LIV run. Patrick Reed will be coming back ’round Labor Day. Kevin Na and Hudson Swafford are likely to get some kind of playing status on Tour again, though you will be forgiven if you don’t notice. On the other end of the noise spectrum, Bryson. It would not be a shocker to see DeChambeau come in from the cold next year, despite, despite missing the once-in-a-lifetime Feb. 2 deadline for the Tour’s grand Returning Member Program. If Bryson wants to come home, there will be a RMP II. He has been sounding unsettled, most recently with his 72-holes-is-not-what-we-signed-up-for remarks. Also, the whole LIV team thing — featuring your RangeGoats, your Cleeks, Bryson’s own Crushers squad — hasn’t exactly caught fire yet. Bryson plays in another league anyhow: Team YouTube. Kill-ing-it.

So Koepka is back and everybody on the PGA Tour is happy-happy-happy. Well, not everybody everybody. Wyndham Clark has questions, as does Viktor Hovland and Hideki Matsyuama. But the Big Three are totally down with it: Brian Rolapp, in his first full year as the PGA Tour’s first CEO; Tiger Woods, the 50-year-old golfing icon who doesn’t really play anymore but has a full-time gig as a golf entrepreneur and as Brian Rolapp’s consiglieri; and Rory McIlroy, the most powerful person in golf. Reason being, he knows a lot about tournament golf, global golf, and he has the ear of the fellas who are going to finance a lot of the PGA Tour’s future for-profit enterprises, the Fenway Sports Group, John Henry presiding.

It is head-spinning, to think about how quickly things have changed here. As a wise man once said, managing is about managing change. When Koepka went LIV — June 2022 — the Tour was still the Tour, the one your grandparents would have pretty much recognized. There was a straight line from Joe Dey (the first commissioner) to Jay Monahan (the fourth and last). What the Tour leadership has done since the arrival of LIV is manage change, sometimes clumsily, now in the language that makes the whole world take notice: We gonna make you some money. 

Koepka is lucky that he is not making this return when Joe Dey was running the show. Dey, who came to the nascent PGA Tour after a long career at the USGA, was a rule-of-law golfing ethicist. The sanctity of the scorecard was his starting point, and golf’s starting point, for everything. The comportment of the player was a sacred to him, too. To varying degrees, the commissioners who followed Dey — Deane Beman, Tim Finchem, Jay Monahan — all carried the Dey flame. There was something righteous about being a golfer on Tour, at least when the sun was out. (At night, you were on your own.) Any of the four commissioners might have extracted a promise from the returning Koepka: Don’t be waving five fingers to others after playing a 5-iron shot. Also, my good man: Could you at least pretend that your media sessions are less irritating than those let’s-try-it-again secondary TSA inspections?

As for Reed, Dey and Beman in particular would have had a field day with him, in his meet-the-principal session before returning to the Tour: We cannot have any more rules debacles (incidents at the 2019 Hero event and the 2021 Farmers tournament are at the top of the list), and we cannot have any more frivolous lawsuits aimed at beloved members of the Green Division of the Fourth Estate.

Koepka’s return has created a template for how you get back. You write a letter, you sign a check, you play a tourney feeling kinda bashful, you get your groove back over time.

The friendly-wager bets here are Koepka top-10s this week; the New England Patriots will cover the spread (and then some) in the big game, for no other reason than the Fenway Sports Group is on a roll and this game is FSG-adjacent; Coors Light will win the exposure game during the day, the golf telecast on CBS, but Mich Ultra and its Anheuser-Busch adult cousins will carry the night on NBC, during the big game. Here’s to Sunday. Bartenders really should be able to get endorsement deals for their TV remotes, what your grandparents called “the clicker.”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at michael.bamberger@golf.com.