Brooks Koepka admitted that he “didn’t play good enough to win” after leading for three rounds of The Masters, but he was less than impressed about the pace of play during the final round.
The LIV Golf player, who went into the final 18 holes with a two-shot advantage over Jon Rahm, was unable to make a birdie until the 13th hole, which allowed his Spanish playing partner to coast to victory on the back nine.
Koepka, who at one stage had led the tournament by four shots, was understandably disappointed with his final-round 75 and offered no excuses – but he was clearly miffed at how long it took to complete Sunday’s round.
“The group in front of us was brutally slow. Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting,” he said, when directly asked about the pace of play.
The group in front was Viktor Hovland and Patrick Cantlay, who teed off at 2.24pm, nine minutes earlier than the final pairing. However, Koepka, who is no stranger to singling out slow players, having previously taken aim at Bryson DeChambeau, left it at that, clearly still smarting.
He stopped short of naming who he thought was the culprit, although during coverage, Norway's Hovland could be seen playing shots before Cantlay was even remotely close, suggesting that the American may have been dragging his heels.
Viktor definitely sending Cantlay a message at this stage of the round. pic.twitter.com/Y70kfAi73KApril 9, 2023
The sunny weather on Sunday allowed the tournament to finish on time and avoid a Monday finish, and although it was still light by the time Rahm completed the job, the dark came quickly, which would have meant that getting the playoff in could have been tricky.
None of that mattered in the end, although it’s quite possible the pace of play didn’t help Koepka in his quest to win Major number five. A mixture of a few bad breaks, as well as some errant shots that we hadn’t seen over the preceding three days, left the door open for Rahm – and he charged through with a final-round 69 to win by four strokes.
Despite the obvious hurt that he was suffering immediately afterwards, Koepka paid tribute to Rahm, who he described as “pretty impressive”, before admitting that it would take a little while to get over the disappointment of letting a golden opportunity slip to pull on a Green Jacket.
Asked whether he would view a lofty Major finish as a positive, he said: “Probably not. Not today. Probably not for the next few days. But eventually it will be a positive.
“I'd say probably give it a week, and I'll start to see some positives out of it and carry this over to the PGA, the US Open and The Open. But right now, it's kind of tough to see, if I'm honest, probably for the next few hours and the next few days.”
