Koepka hopes to improve putting in 2019

Where will Brooks Koepka be on New Year’s Day? Perhaps on one of Maui’s pristine beaches, pondering how to follow up his impressive Player of the Year campaign. The three-time major champ is starting the new season at this week’s CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, but he’ll wait until the calendar turns to set new benchmarks. “I think I’ll go out Jan. 1, go to the beach and write down a few goals,â€� Koepka said Wednesday. Staying healthy will be atop the list. Koepka was sidelined nearly four months in early 2018 with a wrist injury. “That hasn’t been the goal that’s gone very well for me my whole career,â€� he said. He also wants to improve his putting. “I didn’t putt very well. I putted well in the majors when I played well, but overall it wasn’t my best putting season,â€� he said. “Statistically, driving was great. I love the way I drove the ball. Ball-striking was really good, so just keep improving on that, try to eliminate those big numbers and just improve on the putting a little bit, which for three years now I’ve been inside the top-10, this past year I think I was maybe 100th or something. If I do that, I can be there week in and week out. The Strokes Gained statistics backed up Koepka’s assessment. He ranked ninth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+0.68) and 113th in Strokes Gained: Putting (+0.02). The brawny Koepka is known for mashing the golf ball, but he also was one of the TOUR’s top putters over the previous three seasons. He finished in the top 20 of Strokes Gained: Putting from 2015-17. The PGA Championship was Koepka’s second-best Strokes Gained: Putting week of the season. Strokes Gained stats aren’t available from the U.S. Open, but he did finish seventh in putting average that week. Koepka added THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES to this year’s schedule after last year’s champion, Justin Thomas, told him that the course would be a good fit for his skill set. “He told me if you hit the ball long, obviously you’ve got a big advantage here, you can carry some bunkers,â€� Koepka said. “Definitely a ball-striker’s golf golf course. And with the wind, the wind could be up obviously like it was last year and the past two days have been pretty windy, so you need to control your ball flight and be a good ball-striker. So that was the reason why I felt I could come here and win the golf tournament, good ball-striker.â€�

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