Brooks Koepka has withdrawn from the Northern Trust due to injury, and ended his 2019-20 PGA Tour season before the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Koepka ranks no. 7 in the official World Golf Rankings, but no. 97 in the FedEx Cup Standings goes to this week’s first playoff event at TPC Boston. The four-time big winner needed a strong performance to make it into the top-70 of the standings to advance to the BMW Championship.
Although the injury care specifications were not detailed in the official announcement of the PGA Tour, Koepka suffered a partially torn patella tendon in his left knee in 2019. He missed the Presidents Cup and has struggled with knee pain even in restart, but indicated after a strong show at the WGC St. Jude Invitational in Memphis that things were improving. Koepka appeared healthy when he made a run on the three-turf at the PGA Championship at Harding Park earlier this month, but his last round 74 left him out of the hunt when Collin Morikawa won the Wannamaker Trophy in San Francisco won. Koepka some T29.
Koepka loaded up his schedule with six straight events as he tried to improve his status in the FedEx Cup hunt in an attempt to give himself a shot at making the Tour Championship, a move he opposes the reputation of a player who “only cares about major.” Last week, Koepka appeared relieved of work pressure when he missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship, and this decision to withdraw him due to an injury comes probably as a result of that loading schedule and his effort, on a still recovering knee, to give himself a shot in the playoffs.
