The chance to make more money while only playing three-round tournaments was a major reason that, last year, Brooks Koepka tore up his PGA Tour card and took a punt on LIV Golf.
How fitting that at this year’s US Masters, the four-time major winner once again only played 54 holes.
Who played the final 18 is unclear, but it wasn’t Koepka. At least not the version of him we’ve come to know.
Catch over 120 hours of live coverage during The Masters on Kayo Sports. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
READ MORE
If looks could kill: Koepka’s ‘brutally slow’ crack as Masters star roasted over cardinal golf sin
PGA star wins Masters, key battle in LIV war as Phil stuns, Aussies plummet on final day
‘Rose above pettiness’: Phil’s big PGA message as golf pariah in Masters blitz only he saw coming
This was the first time that Koepka held the 54-hole lead of a major tournament and didn’t win — and he didn’t even come close, either.
The 32-year-old fizzled during Sunday’s Masters marathon, which saw the leaders play 30 holes in one day due to earlier weather delays.
Koepka birdied the eighth hole in his third round to start the slog, but didn’t hit another until several hours, and 23 holes, later when it was too late.
By that point, PGA Tour rival Jon Rahm was running away with the green jacket, which would be draped on the Spaniard later that evening.
Whether LIV was to blame for Koepka’s fadeout will be debated well into the night from both sides of the golf war.
LIV’s detractors will point squarely at its shortened, team-focused format for rendering Koepka surprisingly toothless in the deciding moment of a major. The opposite once defined the professional career of Koepka, whose eight PGA Tour wins are 50 per cent majors.
LIV Golf players will scoff at such suggestions, however, countering with the fact that this was largely a good tournament for the PGA Tour’s defectors.
A number of their top stars proved at this year’s Masters that they can still mix it with the PGA Tour’s best, and are not merely winding down the clocks on their careers with bloated pay cheques.
Koepka ultimately finished second at eight-under, joined by fellow LIV Golf star Phil Mickelson, who caught fire on Sunday with a scarcely-believable seven-under final round.
Colleague Patrick Reed was also one of the best in the final round, climbing to seven-under to finish in a tie for fourth.
As such, three of the tournament’s top six were LIV Golf members — two of which made their biggest moves in the final 18 holes.
The crucial difference here, however, is that neither Mickelson or Reed were in contention on the final day, making their moves from the shadows.
Their performances in the final round therefore prove that LIV Golf players can indeed still play well over 72 holes, but not if they can play well for 72 holes at the top of a major leaderboard.
Koepka was the only one in the mix for the tournament’s entirety and, of the Masters’ top-10 finishers, Viktor Hovland was the only other player to post an over-par final round.
What will damage LIV’s claims to having 72-hole warriors further is that, of all people on its roster, Koepka was arguably its most likely to close out a major when in contention.
Koepka won the US Open in 2017 and 2018, and the PGA Championship in 2018 and 2019, from the front, converting 54-hole leads into major championships.
The only time he’s spurned a lead was the Masters in 2019 when he was up after 36 holes, but came second behind Tiger Woods.
Masterful Mickelson sinks 5 huge birdies | 03:07
It should be said that Koepka has been through hell since, with a nasty knee injury in 2021 stopping him in his tracks and rendering him a non-factor until he signed with LIV Golf last year.
But after winning two events on the LIV Golf circuit, before starting the Masters in red-hot fashion, it did appear that the Koepka of old had emerged again.
Going four-over in a birdieless 12 holes to start the final round, however, was the anti-Koepka.
LIV Golf might’ve earnt credibility during this year’s Masters, but the door now remains open to further criticism.
And that criticism may not solely focus on its 54-hole format with arguably a greater issue now exposed.
Golf Channel analyst and former pro Paul McGinley is one who doesn’t believe it played a factor in Koepka’s struggles, instead pointing to LIV’s more relaxed atmosphere for blunting the American’s charge.
“I think it’s because it’s in a different vibe (at LIV). You’re not cutting your teeth in a really cutthroat, competitive environment,” McGinley said. “And I think all competitors, no matter what sport, need that to have that real elevated performance.
Rahm sinks final putt to clinch Masters | 00:31
“I will hold that it’s not odds-for, it’s odds-against by playing in a different environment to come into these majors. (LIV is) a team event, it’s got rock music going on, there’s a whole load of different vibes going on there.”
McGinley believes LIV players can continue to compete at majors since they are not far removed from the PGA Tour, but warned it will only become more difficult.
“The further down the road they go, of being further away from cutting their teeth in 72-hole events — they’re only 11 months, 10 months away, some of them less than that, from playing on the PGA Tour on a reuglar basis, so it’s still in their DNA,” he said.
“If we’re still here in two or three years’ time, I think it’s going to be more and more difficult for them.”
For now, Koepka is confident that, in at least contending for almost 72 holes, he’s proven that he can win a fifth major.
He also denied after his round that he, or fellow players, believe that playing for LIV Golf is a disadvantage at the majors.
“I mean, we’re still the same people. So I mean, I know if I’m healthy, I know I can compete,” he said. “I don’t think any of the guys that played this event thought otherwise, either.
“When Phil plays good, we know he’s going to compete. P-Reed, the same thing.
“I think that’s just manufactured by the media that we can’t compete anymore; that we are washed up.”
True, some of the brutal commentary around the competitiveness of LIV Golf now feels overblown with a number of their stars performing well.
But with three more majors still to come this year, the jury will still be out on whether golf’s cash-rich, Saudi-funded globetrotters remain on the same level as the PGA Tour’s week-in, week-out grinders.
The reality is that when it came down to it on Sunday, it was one of the PGA Tour’s leading foot soldiers who looked sharpest.
Rahm was in a class of his own — a four-shot win didn’t flatter the new world No.1 in the slightest.
Meanwhile, veteran golf journalist Jaime Diaz doesn’t believe that the Masters performances of Koepka, or that of Mickelson and Reed, has legitimised LIV Golf at all.
“I don’t really feel like their good play makes LIV a more attractive product, or a more compelling product,” Diaz said on the Golf Channel. “It’s still the same product.
“That environment has, I hate to say it, kind of a deadening effect on the drama that we saw today.
“I think it’s the arena that made the LIV Golfers compelling, not that they’re LIV Golfers coming to the Masters.”
What has the potential to damage LIV’s reputation further is that the fealty of its leading player, Koepka, showed multiple wobbles during the major.
Koepka signed on with LIV Golf for a reported sign-on figure of more than $100 million (A$150m), and the chance to make many more millions in prize money.
But he signed during a moment of vulnerability, when he was unsure if his body would allow him to compete at the top level ever again.
Asked during the week if his decision to join LIV Golf would’ve been harder if injury-free, he said: “Honestly, yeah, probably, if I’m being completely honest.
“I think it would have been. But I’m happy with the decision I made.”
It’s also worth noting that, unlike his colleagues, Koepka refused to don the emblem of his LIV Golf team during the Masters.
For now, it’s back to the LIV Golf circuit for Koepka, with the next event a world away from the PGA Tour, at Adelaide’s Grange Golf Club in two weeks’ time.
For the uber-competitive Koepka, who has just tasted what it’s like to be in the heat of golf’s greatest battle once more, it will be interesting to see how quickly he gets itchy feet.
