Every golfer in the world has hit a bad shot but to hit one of the worst you’ve ever hit as a PGA Tour player in the Ryder Cup must truly sting.
Thankfully for most golfers, that hasn’t been the case, with many holding their nerve in the main in golf’s biggest team event.
However, if you’re Brooks Koepka, then you’re not quite so lucky.
In fact, looking back to the Ryder Cup in 2016, Koepka’s long-time friend and caddy, Ricky Elliott, has recalled the story of just how bad Koepka played one at Hazeltine.
Brooks Koepka’s worst ever golf shot named
Brooks Koepka and Ricky Elliott were both speaking on the latest episode of the Smash GC YouTube channel show, ‘Talking Smash’.
And getting into some untold stories, Elliott and Koepka went into his nightmare shot in 2016.
“Probably Ryder Cup in 2016, playing with Sneds [Brandt Snedeker] in the foursomes. Tight game, wasn’t it? I think it was Fitz [we were playing against], who was probably only 20 and I think it was Stenson,” Elliott said.
“Sneds hit a lovely drive down the left hand side in the foursomes. It was in the semi-rough, it wasn’t the rough. It wasn’t lying that bad. You were going for the green anyway! So he has leant into it a little bit and shanked it like 45 degrees right, it nearly hit me!
“The best thing about that is the oldest saying in golf. The hardest shot in golf is the one after you have shanked one. I said don’t worry about that, Sneds has got the next one in foursomes!”
Chipping in on the story to explain just how the shot went down within the Team USA camp, Koepka himself admitted that even Tiger Woods and Bubba Watson had a giggle about it.
“Even Bubba was there,” Koepka admitted. “Because Bubba was one of the assistant captains that week. The assistants have ear pieces. I guess they watched on TV and they were talking about it in the captain’s thing.
“I think Tiger radioed to him and said hey don’t worry about it, only like 10 million people just saw that. It’s all good. Maybe my first Ryder Cup, the second match I had played. It was obviously embarrassing. I had never shanked one really and that was the first one.”
Brooks Koepka’s Ryder Cup record
While many might struggle in the team format and pressure of a Ryder Cup, Brooks Koepka is a man who knows how to win.
He’s done it all his career with five majors but his record in the Ryder Cup also stands up as well.
Prior to the event in Rome in 2023, Koepka was a major contributor for Team USA, winning six of his twelve total matches with just one defeat. In terms of singles, he’d also won two from three.
Of course, 2023 in Rome was a tough one for Team USA, and Koepka was no different in terms of being on the wrong end of a few bad results.
He teamed up with Scottie Scheffler to halve his opening fourballs match, but in his second match, he was on the wrong end of a record hammering against Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg, who beat Koepka and Scheffler 9&7.
However, in true Brooks fashion, he fought back and defeated Aberg in singles action, 3&2.
Looking back at 2016, it looks like his ‘shank’ was a bit of an anomaly.
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