Despite an erroneous WD scare, Brooks Koepka is in the field at this week’s 2026 Genesis Scottish Open. And based on his pre-tournament press conference at the Renaissance Club, he couldn’t be happier about it.
This week’s event is the 14th start of Koepka’s surprise PGA Tour return following years playing on LIV Golf.
While his comeback hasn’t been completely smooth, the five-time major champion is feeling better than his results so far have shown, both on and off the golf course.
On Wednesday, an open and talkative Koepka revealed what he’s most pleased about so far in his PGA Tour return, while also naming the thing that’s disappointed him most.
Koepka says PGA Tour return has brought him ‘happiness’
When news broke in January that Koepka was rejoining the PGA Tour via the Returning Member Program, it shocked the golf world.
But it wasn’t a surprise to Koepka and his wife, Jena. As Koepka revealed at the Scottish Open, they had been working on his comeback, and keeping their plans secret, for a while.
Koepka admitted it wasn’t “the easiest thing” to keep such a monumental career and life change under wraps. But the relief Koepka experienced when his Tour return became a reality, and the happiness that has followed, are the things he’s most pleased with regarding his comeback.
“What have I been most pleased with? I think — yeah, I think I’ve been most pleased with — this is probably going to come across a little selfish, but just the happiness that I have,” Koepka revealed to reporters on Wednesday. “Maybe a weight lifted off my shoulders, or it’s not — kept it a secret for a little while. So it’s not the easiest thing.”
His play on the course — including four missed cuts and only one top 10 — is not the source of his newfound satisfaction. Instead, it’s Koepka’s wife and son — and the ability to spend more time with them on the PGA Tour compared to LIV — that has brought him “happiness.”
“But I just see the happiness. I look at I’m able to be around my son a lot more. Jena is able to be around and they are able to travel to a lot more events. Things like that, that stuff brings me happiness,” Koepka explained. “Whether I play good or whether I play bad, I walk off the 18th green, my wife and son are standing right there and, it’s cool, no matter — my son doesn’t care if I shoot 80 or 65, he doesn’t know the difference. It’s ‘Da-Da’; he goes that way and runs towards me. That’s cool. Having them around has been amazing and takes a little bit of the pressure away from when you’re playing.”
As for the thing he’s least pleased with since returning to the PGA Tour, Koepka quipped “my putting,” before admitting that his game along with his life are turning around after feeling like he couldn’t “catch a break” on or off the course during his last season with LIV Golf.
“I feel like last year I wasn’t in the head space to actually play good golf, and now that everything is kind of cleared up and I’m in a better — we all have that, right? It’s life,” Koepka said. “Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s difficult. There’s a lot of stuff, like I said, off the golf course, on the golf course, didn’t matter. Didn’t feel like I could catch a break, as a player, as a person, as a family. Yeah.”
That happiness served him well in Thursday’s opening round at the Renaissance Club, where Koepka fired a four-under 66 to get near the top of the leaderboard early at the Scottish Open.
Koepka mum on LIV pros returning to PGA Tour
While Koepka was long-winded when talking about himself, he had few words to spare when the topic of LIV Golf came up.
Some LIV Golf pros are permitted to play this week’s Genesis Scottish Open due to the fact that it’s co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and PGA Tour.
Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm, the latter of whom just settled a dispute with the DP World Tour, have taken up the rare opportunity to win a PGA Tour-sanctioned event as current LIV players.
When asked whether his former LIV tour mates being allowed to tee it up was a sign of pro golf’s future reunification, Koepka said simply, “I’m not a part of those conversations, so I don’t know.”
He was then pressed if he’d like to see a “return to normality” in pro golf, and he again refused to supply an opinion, instead saying that he was “more focused” on himself.
“I don’t have an opinion either way. I’m more focused on myself. I think that’s the one thing I think I’ve learned through all of this is if I can just focus on myself and be the best golfer, best father, husband, whatever, I’m doing more than I want to do right now, and being present with them and play good golf,” Koepka said. “I feel like that’s all that matters to me. What happens to everybody else, I’m not so concerned with.”