Koepka Explains $130m LIV Golf Offer In New Book Excerpt

The dust has long since settled on the host of high-profile players who signed for LIV Golf in the months after it launched.

However, an excerpt from an upcoming book, LIV and Let Die, by golf journalist Alan Shipnuck, recounts the moment when, shortly after joining the circuit, former World No.1 Brooks Koepka explained he was offered the huge figure of $130m to sign up, and cited career-threatening injury problems beforehand as pivotal to his decision.

The excerpt details how LIV Golf players including Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Pat Perez and Dustin Johnson were in a small, private bar at Adare Manor in Ireland after the 2022 JP MacManus Pro-Am. There, Koepka offered his reasons for joining LIV.

The excerpt reads: "'F*** all of those country club kids who talk s*** about me,' he said, referring to the likes of Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and others. 'You think I give a f*** what they think? You think I care what people say about me? I just had three surgeries, and I’m supposed to turn down $130 million? I grew up with nothing. After signing that contract, the first person I called was my mom. We both cried.'"

The fee Koepka had moved for had not previously been disclosed, although it was thought to be in the region of $100m. However, it appears the figure was closer to the $125m reportedly offered to Johnson to sign up.

Meanwhile, Koepka had knee surgery in 2021, but the extent of his injury problems before he moved to LIV Golf only became clear during this year’s Masters at Augusta National, where he revealed exactly what he had gone through.

After the first round in the Major, he told the media: “I just slipped. I was at home. I dislocated my knee and then I tried to put it back in and that's when I shattered my kneecap and during the process tore my MPFL [medial patellofemoral ligament].

“My leg was sideways and out. My foot was turned out, and when I snapped it back in, because the kneecap had already shattered, it went in pretty good. It went in a lot easier!”

Understandably, that took quite some time to regain full fitness from and, following the second round, where Koepka would eventually finish runner-up, he was asked if the decision to sign for LIV would have been more challenging if he had been as healthy at the time. He responded: “Honestly, yeah, probably, if I'm being completely honest. I think it would have been.”

Following the publication of the excerpt on The Fire Pit Collective, Koepka's mother has responded on X (formerly Twitter), writing: "Just to clarify, the only time my son @BKoepka and I cried together was when he was born. He was testing lungs for the first time; I was glad the pregnancy ordeal was over. End of story."

The full excerpt from Shipnuck’s book, which details the battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, also reveals how at one point, it looked as though LIV Golf may not launch at all.

It says that was because LIV executives, who had been negotiating with Bryson DeChambeau and Johnson, were “blindsided by the players’ public pronouncements of loyalty to the PGA Tour.”

However, it then details how, following a group call with Saudi Public Investment Fund governor Yassir Al-Rumayyan, the project got back on track in a moment that was “like in The Wolf of Wall Street when Leonardo DiCaprio gives that speech and the whole room goes crazy.”

LIV and Let Die Will be released on 17 October.