Brooks Koepka and Tiger Woods. (Image: Getty)
star may consider himself superior to , but even he has admitted he’ll never match up to Tiger Woods. The 34-year-old has won five major championships, with his last, the 2023 Championship, coming after his move to the rebel tour.
Koepka is considered one of LIV’s most high-profile stars and has never been deemed short of self-confidence.
He has also not been afraid to get in verbal spats with rival players, famously feuding with former team-mate .
So his latest challenge appeared right up his street. On footage posted by the @GolfDigest X account, Koepka played the ’Stay quiet’ challenge, where the names of a host of fellow golf professionals were read out to him.
Koepka was asked to keep quiet until he heard the name of a player he considered better than him. Along with McIlroy, he listened on as 14 other names were read out.
They were Akshay Batia, Shane Lowry, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Martin Kaymer, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Ludvig Aberg, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau and Scottie Scheffler. Throughout the 30 seconds, there was little sign of him breaking his steely gaze.
Woods and Koepka now rarely compete against each other. (Image: Getty)
Until we reached Woods, that is. When the name of the 15-time major winner was called, Koepka cracked, smiling as he said: “I was going to hold out, but yeah, Tiger, I can’t. I can’t even joke about that one. Tiger has got that one.”
Indeed, even for an individual as brash as Koepka, trying to lay claim to being better than Woods would have been a stretch. The 49-year-old has won 82 times on the PGA Tour, a record only matched by another golf icon Sam Snead.
Woods was also world No.1 in his prime for an unprecedented 683 consecutive weeks. Furthermore, he has the record of leading the money list in 10 different seasons.
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Koepka, too, has experience at the top of the rankings, enjoying the No.1 spot for 47 weeks from October 2018 onwards. However, he currently has little chance of repeating that feat with LIV tournaments not recognised by the OGWR.
He and Woods have been on opposite sides of golf’s civil war these past three years, with the all-time great a staunch critic of the Saudi-backed tour. However, the PGA Tour and LIV and currently locked in talks over a merger deal, with .