Matthew Wolff sets up awkward Brooks Koepka showdown as LIV Golf rivals go head-to-head
LIV Golf rivals Brooks Koepka and Matthew Wolff will go head-to-head in pursuit of victory for the first time since the five-time major champion publicly humiliated his former Smash GC teammate.
Smash captain Koepka said he had “given up” on Wolff amid a dreadful run of form last season, which included a final-round withdrawal in Washington DC, describing the 25-year-old as a “wasted talent”.
Wolff was duly traded to RangeGoats GC before the start of this season, with Talor Gooch going in the opposite direction. And the move has paid off for Wolff, who has enjoyed a promising start to the campaign with fourth and third-place finishes in Las Vegas and Miami respectively.
And his good form has continued in Singapore, carding a terrific second round of six-under-par to climb into a four-way tie for second place, three shots adrift of Koepka (-12) at Sentosa Golf Club. The former teammates are not paired in the same group, with Wolff teeing off 11 minutes earlier, but he will be eager to claim his maiden LIV Golf victory and get the bragging rights over his former captain in the process.
“I don’t think it really matters,” Wolff said when asked if he would rather be in the final group alongside Koepka. “I think I’m out there focusing on myself, trying to play the best that I can play, and I’m not worried about what other people are doing.
“Every single tournament, every single round, I just go out there and give it my best, and that’s all I can really do. Like I said, I can’t control what other people are doing. So why focus on him?”
Koepka is chasing his fourth LIV Golf title and his first since winning in Jeddah in October 2023. He insists Wolff’s name near the top of the leaderboard will not be a distraction.
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Matthew Wolff is chasing his first LIV Golf victory
“Look, I have no problem with Matt,” he said. “We just didn’t gel, see eye to eye on how things were or how I thought they should be. I’ve always liked him as a person.
“I think he’s a great kid. I’ve said that to a bunch of people even behind closed doors during everything last year. It was a good thing for him to leave the team and go to the RangeGoats, and it was a good thing for our team. Look, he’s fine. He seems to be playing better, in a better head space, better form, better everything.”
Koepka’s latest comments are a significant departure from the verdict he delivered on Wolff 10 months ago. He told Sports Illustrated at the time: “I mean, when you quit on your round, you give up and stuff like that, that’s not competing.
“I’m not a big fan of that. You don’t work hard. It’s very tough. It’s very tough to have even like a team dynamic when you’ve got one guy that won’t work, one guy is not going to give any effort, he’s going to quit on the course, break clubs, gets down, bad body language, it’s very tough. I’ve basically given up on him—a lot of talent, but I mean the talent’s wasted.”
Koepka will be in the final group alongside Thomas Pieters and Adrian Meronk with a £3.2million top prize on the line. Wolff has been grouped with Abraham Ancer and Lucas Herbert.