Brooks

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Brooks Koepka admits that golf initially appealed to him as a way of spending time with his family. “I just wanted to hang with my dad and my brother,” he says of his beginnings in the sport at the age of 10.

After several years honing his game near the family home in West Palm Beach, Florida, Koepka stayed in the state to play college golf for Florida State University.

He was a three-time winner and played as an amateur in the 2012 US Open, where he missed the cut. But he turned pro that summer and started out on Europe’s Challenge Tour.

By then he had grown to a height of 6ft, and in 2013 he won three times to earn a card for the European Tour the following year.

Koepka stepped up again in 2014 with a win at the Turkish Airlines Open and a consistency that earned him the Rookie of the Year Award. He also finished fourth at the US Open, which earned him a PGA Tour card for 2015.

Brooks Koepka had competed well when he played several PGA Tour events on an invitational basis in 2014. Within weeks of joining the Tour full-time he had his first win, at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

By the end of 2015 he had recorded his first two top-10 finishes at the Majors, with a tie for 10th at The Open and joint fifth place at the PGA Championship. In the following year he went one better with fourth in the PGA – before the Major wins began to roll in, in 2017.

Koepka, one shot back after the third round of the US Open at Erin Hills, Wisconsin, blazed his way to victory by four strokes with a final round of 67. That sealed the joint lowest US Open score in history, 16 under par.

His defense of that title a year later began inauspiciously at the demanding Shinnecock Hills course in New York. Koepka carded an opening round of 75, but a 66 the following day got him back in contention and he sealed the deal on the Sunday with a score of 68 and a one-stroke win.

Koepka was now a multiple Major winner, and he followed up instantly by winning the next one, the 2018 PGA Championship. He finished 16 under par, two strokes clear of one of the men he credits as the greatest influence on his golfing career – Tiger Woods.

Brooks Koepka’s double Major win in 2018 carried him to the top of the world rankings for the first time, a position he would hold for a total of 47 weeks over the next couple of years.

His record in golf’s most prestigious tournaments in 2019 was extraordinary, as he finished in the top five in all four.

Koepka led after the first round at the Masters, but a double-bogey at the short 12th in the final round was critical as he lost by one stroke and Woods recorded a fairytale comeback victory.

Koepka then threatened to turn the PGA Championship into a procession, and led by seven shots going into the final round, but in the end won his fourth Major by just two from Dustin Johnson.

Koepka moved steadily into contention at the US Open, but had to settle for second place, three shots behind Gary Woodland. He then tied for fourth at The Open Championship, well behind Irish winner Shane Lowry.

His admirable consistency was on display again in 2021, despite having knee surgery in March of that year. He recorded top-10 finishes in three Majors, including a tie for second place at the PGA.

He rounded off that year in style with two victories in the USA’s emphatic Ryder Cup victory over Europe at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

With his status as one of the world’s leading modern golfers firmly established, Brooks Koepka signed a LIV contract to join the new golf series in 2022.

And it was not long before he hit the winning trail again, with victory in the LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah in the October of that year.

Koepka, the captain of the Smash GC team, led from the front in 2023 with victories in the tournaments at Orlando and Jeddah.

Away from LIV Golf, Koepka took his tally of Major victories to five as he won the PGA Championship for the third time. Koepka roared back from an opening round of 72 at Oak Hill, New York, and clinched a two-shot victory with a final round of 67.

This made him the first man to win three Major titles at different courses in the same state. “I love New York, it’s treated me pretty well,” he said. “Three of the five have been in New York, so I’ll come back any time!”

Back on the LIV Golf circuit in 2024, Koepka took his total of individual titles to five with wins at Singapore and The Greenbrier – beating Jon Rahm in a playoff to win the latter event.

It’s one of the favorite questions of golf fans when it comes to leading players. WITB, which stands for “What’s in the bag?” And the answer, in Brooks Koepka’s case, is that it’s an intriguingly mixed bag.

Koepka was left without a club supplier in 2016 when Nike, which previously supplied all his equipment, stopped making clubs. He now carries a selection from various brands that have been selected to suit his swing.

His driver and three-wood are both produced by TaylorMade, the Qi10 and the M2 respectively. He still carries a Nike Vapor Pro three-iron, but the rest of his irons are from the Srixon ZX7 range. His wedges, meanwhile, are from the Cleveland RTX selection and his putter is a Scotty Cameron T10 Newport model.

Srixon is also responsible for the balls Koepka uses; he favors the company’s Z-Star Diamond ball.

Brooks Koepka and Jena Sims first met at the Masters in 2015, and began dating two years later. Sims is a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and actress who has featured in a host of movies and TV shows.

The couple got engaged in 2021 and Sims became his wife a year later. Their first child, Crew, was born in July 2023 and Koepka welcomed his son to the world with an emotional social media post saying simply: “I love my Crew.”

The Koepka family lives in his beloved Florida, in Jupiter. The couple featured extensively in the popular TV series Full Swing.

Koepka’s brother Chase, who is four years younger, is also a pro golfer who played on the LIV Golf circuit in 2022 and 2023.

While Koepka often presents a serious face of total concentration to the world during tournaments, he definitely has a lighter side too. He sported a mullet especially for the Ryder Cup in Italy in 2023, where he was on the USA side that lost the trophy to Europe.

Top-level golf is an intense, competitive activity. So it’s no surprise if some of the supremely driven personalities vying for supremacy fall out from time to time.

For instance, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau did not used to be the best of pals. The ill-feeling between them began at the Dubai Desert Classic in 2019 and carried on for two years – including a flare-up at the 2021 PGA Championship. 

The animosity between the two thawed gradually over time, as the pair became two of the biggest stars in the LIV Golf world, and when they played as team-mates in the Ryder Cup. 

A social media posting after the USA’s emphatic victory in the 2021 match showed DeChambeau wearing a T-shirt that depicted him and Koepka together based on the movie Step Brothers. 

Koepka admitted in 2024 that their beef was now in the past, saying: “Yeah, we’re done. Obviously, the LIV conversation, that was kind of the big turning point, it was like, ‘Hey, we gotta work together with this’. But also… we were like, ‘Finally, let’s just move on’.”

Away from the golf course, Brooks Koepka is a huge fan of the Florida Panthers, who in 2024 won hockey’s most coveted prize, the Stanley Cup, for the first time.

The celebrations were long and loud and, during a parade through the streets of Fort Lauderdale, defense man Aaron Ekblad grabbed a microphone and yelled: “F*** you, Brooks Koepka!”

It transpired that during a game earlier in the season, Koepka had branded Ekblad a “traffic cone” from the stands after the Panthers gave away a goal.

Koepka took Ekblad’s parade shout-out in good heart, sharing the clip with three laughing emojis. It turned out that he had texted Ekblad to apologize for the traffic cone jibe, and Ekblad said: “At the end of the day it’s all just sports, right? We all get intense sometimes. It is what it is.”

Brooks Koepka’s net worth was estimated in 2024 at $50million. That number has been boosted in recent years by his success on the PGA Tour and, of course, his move to LIV Golf.

Koepka has an exclusive deal with Nike for his golf apparel, which is why he wears Nike gear on the course and never uses any clothing with LIV Golf logos on it. Koepka’s golf shoes, made by Nike, are the Air Zoom Infinity Tour Next% models.

It has been estimated that Koepka makes up to $8million a year from his commercial deals with a host of sponsors, including Nike. His deal with Srixon includes an agreement to sport the company’s name on his tour bag. His other sponsors include Rolex, Michelob and NetJets.

Brooks Koepka would clearly love to complete the career slam by adding victory at the Masters and The Open Championship to his personal roll of honor.

He has stated that St Andrews is his favorite course – but sadly, the famous old venue is not on the roster to host The Open until 2027 at the earliest.

The Masters, where Koepka has tied for second twice, will always be a personal target.

He said: “When March comes around I go to work, I shut everything off. It feels like the rest of my life doesn’t even exist. It is just go play golf, try and win Augusta.”

Clearly, Koepka’s appetite for firsts, in LIV Golf and beyond, is as keen as ever.