Brooks: Bryson Is "Fair Game"

Brooks Koepka was probed and prodded by a more traditional press conference setting, resulting in plenty to fill up Steve Stricker’s notes for the “Task Force" files. Usually these things are put in the files AFTER the Ryder Cup, not before.

Enjoy!

Q. Is there a point considering that the Ryder Cup is coming up later this year that you have to start getting along with Bryson somehow if you're going to be in the same team in September?

BROOKS KOEPKA: You realise it's only a week, right?

Q. But you are on the same team.

BROOKS KOEPKA: It's only a week. I mean, look, I can put it aside for business. If we're going to be on the same team, I can deal with anybody in the world for a week.

I'm not playing with him. I'm pretty sure we're not going to be paired together; put it that way. I think it's kind of obvious.

Oh I don’t know, Hal Sutton might have put you two together. Go on…

It doesn't matter. I don't think they're -- we're not going to be high fiving and having late-night conversations. I do my thing, he does his thing. Yeah, we're on the same team, but it's not an issue at all. I don't view it as an issue. I don't think he does.

He did NOT rule out a fist bump.

Like I said, I can put anything aside for a team, business, whatever, just to get the job done. No problem with that.

And we always knew it was the Liberty situation but always nice to have it fleshed out.

Q. When you explained recently the start of this thing with Bryson, you said that he went back on his word, which is why you sort of -- did you explain what he did? How did he go back on his word? Apologies if you have said that and I missed it. What made you think he had gone back on his word?

BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah, it was at -- I said it a couple weeks ago. It was at Liberty. He didn't like that I had mentioned his name in slow play, so we had a conversation in the locker room, and then I guess we said something else in the press conference but didn't mention his name in it, and he walked up to Ricky, said something. It was, You tell your man if he's got something to say, say it to myself. I thought that was ironic because he went straight to Ricky. Ricky told me when I came out, hit a few putts, and then just walked right over to him, we had a conversation. We both agreed we'd leave each other out of it and wouldn't mention each other, just kind of let it die off, wouldn't mention each other's names, just go about it.

So then he decided I guess he was going on that little, whatever, playing video games online or whatever and brought my name up and said a few things, so now it's fair game.

Fair game. Take that opposing Ryder Cup team!