After a wayward drive from playing partner Daniel Berger, Brooks Kopeka found his ball in the vicinity of a small drain. With his recent wrist injury surely top-of-mind, Koepka was concerned his clubhead would hit the drain post-impact, injuring himself in the process. He called over a rules official to make his case, and the rules official didn’t see the need for a free drop.
“Have you ever seen me hit a golf ball?” Brooks asked sarcastically.
Brooks asked for a second rules official who re-affirmed the first official’s decision. That’s when things started to get heated.
“This is bull—-,” Berger was heard saying.
“If I break my wrist, it’s on f—ing both of you,” Koepka says.
Koepka hit his shot and avoided any interference with the drain.
Here at the media center on the ground at Whistling Straits, we’re treated to the international feed of the broadcast. Throughout the incident and immediately following it, the Sky Sports golf commentary duo of Ewen Murray and Andrew Coltart narrated the saga with some delightful quips.
Here’s a quick selection:
“Looks like the referees were right”
“That discussion should’ve never taken place when he can do that from the lie he had.”
“If he thought he was going to break his wrist, he should have taken a penalty drop”
“The club never comes close to what Brooks said he was going to hit.”
“The referee has made the decision, get on with it boys.”
“If a fat bird flies by, are they going to take another two or three minutes to decide what to do?”
While the team put forth by NBC is no doubt among the best in the business, it’s hard not to wish we all got a little bit more of SkySports’ sardonicism in our golf-watching day-to-day.
Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.
An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.