Brooks Koepka doesn’t think his beef with Bryson DeChambeau would affect their ability to be teammates for the US Ryder Cup team. Nevertheless, US captain Steve Stricker doesn’t agree, saying the animosity “doesn’t make me happy.”
“Yeah, it’s not making my job any easier, you know?” Stricker told Yahoo! Sports. “I haven’t talked to either one of them, but will have to at some point. We’ll see where it goes from there. Hopefully, they can put their differences aside for the week, be big boys and come together as a team.
Stricker’s comments come just a day after Koepka said he believed that him and DeChambeau could co-exist on the same team without actually playing together.
“There’s only eight guys that are playing [at a time], four guys are sitting, whatever,” Koepka said. “I mean, I play with one other guy. I don’t understand – if let’s say I don’t play with Bryson or Bryson doesn’t play with me, he takes care of his match, and I would take care of my match, and I don’t know how that has any effect. What you do off the golf course doesn’t have any effect on the golf course.”
Stricker is smart enough to know to not pair the two together for the Ryder Cup. But he wants a unified front when the US takes on Europe.
“Obviously, I probably wouldn’t pair them together [in foursomes and four-balls],” Stricker said. “But as the team room goes, you want everybody on board. You can’t have an outlier, or outliers, making trouble for everybody else. But I’m sure they’re big men and they can put their differences aside and go from there.”
The Koepka-DeChambeau feud started back in 2019 when Koepka criticized DeChambeau for his slow pace of play. Since then it has been a back-and-forth battle to see who could get on who’s nerves more.
That includes DeChambeau walking past Koepka while he was doing an interview during the PGA Championship last month. In return, Koepka called DeChambeau’s move “bulls–t.”
The feud stretched to the golfer’s fanbases as hecklers shouted “Go Brooks” or “Brooksie” as DeChambeau was hitting at last weekend’s Memorial Tournament. DeChambeau was not pleased by the fans, but Koepka was more than entertained. He even offered up free beer for any fan who were kicked out of the event.
Despite all the drama between the two, they might be paired for the US Open next week. Stricker hopes that the US Golf Association would do that to allow DeChambeau and Koepka to talk man to man about their problems.
“That’s what I heard. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But that would be interesting. I told my wife (Nicki), maybe the thing to do is I get paired with them at a tournament round and see how it goes.” Stricker said.