Two-time U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka announced Wednesday that he is withdrawing from next week’s championship at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.
Koepka alluded to injury concerns as the reason for his decision, which comes just three weeks after ending a disappointing season by withdrawing from The Northern Trust due to injury. “Unfortunately, I have decided to withdraw from next week’s U.S. Open,” Koepka wrote in a Twitter post. “I’m looking forward to getting healthy and competing at 100 (percent) again very soon.”
Unfortunately, I have decided to withdraw from next week’s U.S. Open. I’m looking forward to getting healthy and competing at 100% again very soon. pic.twitter.com/Mukh8oKUEJ
— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) September 9, 2020
Koepka won the U.S. Open in 2017 and 2018 and was runner-up to Gary Woodland last year, but has been hampered by lingering knee and hip ailments this season. The 30-year-old had a stem-cell treatment for a partially torn patellar tendon in his left knee shortly after last year’s Tour Championship and re-injured the knee two starts later after slipping on wet concrete at The CJ Cup in October.
“Everything felt good, and then in Korea, I re-tore it and the kneecap had moved into the fat pad,” Koepka said. “That’s excruciating. It’s a lot of pain. It’s not fun.”
Earlier this summer, Koepka told Golf.com the injury was “a lot worse than we let on,” and admitted, “I’m nowhere near 100 percent; I don’t know if my knee will ever be 100 percent. It’s one of those things where I’m just trying every day.”
Koepka finished tied for 29th at the PGA Championship in San Francisco in August, but missed the cut in his most previous start just a week later at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
“It’s not the knee,” he said after missing the cut in Greensboro. “This is physical. I know how to do it, I can do it, I just physically can’t do it.
“My golf swing is fine. If I can physically do it, then yes, everything’s fine.” The four-time major winner posted two top-10 finishes during the coronavirus-interrupted season, including a tie for second at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational on Aug. 1 in Memphis.
Koepka finished 104th in the FedEx Cup standings and currently is No. 8 in the World Golf Rankings.
–Field Level Media ()