Koepkas Masters claim blows up in his face at | Golf News

Brooks Koepka missed the cut at the Houston Open, just two weeks before his eleventh Masters look.

Koepka missed the cut in Houston at 4 over par, a stunning downturn following his latest top-20 end at the Valspar Championship. The five-time major champion now has two weeks to fine-tune his placing before touring to Augusta National to pursue his first inexperienced jacket. This comes after he expressed confidence about his recreation heading into the Houston Open, suggesting he was close to mounting a Masters problem.

“It’s about how I feel, and I feel very good, very confident going into Augusta in a few weeks,” Koepka said before the event in Houston.

He arrived for the week ranked No. 1 on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach and was focusing on his placing.

“It started right after Waste Management,” said Koepka after lacking the cut in Phoenix. “I think that was kind of the breaking point of the frustration of, it’s been two-plus years of poor putting and poor mechanics. Just reset all that.

“Obviously the putter change, and then a lot of mechanical work. Spent fairly a bit of time with Mike just grinding on it and actually advantageous tuning every thing. The strokes gained for the iron play, the iron play’s been great.

“Driver wasn’t great, but I think that driver head was a little mashed. We checked it out on TrackMan yesterday and it was a bit spiny, so I don’t know if it had a little crack in it or something was going wrong with it. We’ve got that sorted now. That cost me easily six, seven shots last week. But I love the way I’m playing. Just want to put myself in contention here for the first time before Augusta.”

Despite lacking the cut, the five-time major champion indicated he has just one remaining factor to handle before Augusta. “I do feel like it is ready,” Koepka said relating to his recreation before failing to make the weekend just two weeks prior to his stroll down Magnolia Lane.

“The only thing is I really haven’t put myself in contention with nine holes to go. That’s really the last missing piece that I feel like I need to accomplish here before Augusta.

“But the sport feels good. Everything’s trending in a good direction. Ball-striking feels actually, actually good. Pete’s executed a phenomenal job just getting every thing where it wants to be.

“The putting was a huge thing. I feel like it’s been so different because I was putting so terribly, I felt like I had to birdie the hole almost from the fairway or from the tee box, where now I can sit back and kind of play golf how I used to play in ’17, ’19, kind of in that run when I was playing very good where I can be very patient and just kind of wait my time. I know I’m going to have five good chances on whatever hole it might be and then just take advantage from there.”