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Brooks Koepka, In Masters Contention Again, Says Quiet Part Out Loud About LIV

It's Moving Day at The Masters, and Brooks Koepka is in contention. Sure, Rory is lapping the field, but Brooks (-3) is hanging around after a strong Friday finish. And no, it is NOT 2018 again. It's 2026! And Brooks Koepka is in the thick of it at a major championship. What a throwback! Naturally, you start to wonder where this has been the past few years. Brooks was the best player in the world at these things for years, and then just fell off the map. Something changed, but I can't quite put my finger on it …Oh yeah! He left the PGA Tour and went to LIV Golf in 2022. That's right. Remember that? What a moment. Back when the golf world was burning to the ground, and players were FLEEING every other day. Fast-forward four years, and Brooks is back. He returned to the Tour this season, and has seemed … normal again. Right? Just normal Brooks. Not miserable. Not disinterested. No longer an afterthought. Happy. He seems happy. His words, not mine!"I'm just enjoying the game a whole lot more," Koepka said after his Friday 72. "I think there's a huge difference if I'm excited to come out and play every week. It is just overall, if your happiness is through the roof, off the golf course and on the golf course, it's really tough to beat it. "You're gonna enjoy every day, everything you're doing." Whooooooooooooof. It's just not a great look for LIV. There's no way to spin that. It's tough. And you couple THOSE comments with how Bryson DeChambeau looked for his brief Masters stint this week, and it's … telling. Bryson missed the cut after folding like a cheap tent on 18 yesterday, and seemed miserable all week. Just miserable. Frankly, the only time he seemed happy was when he and ESPN force-fed us Kevin Hart during Wednesday's Par 3 contest. Other than that? Just miserable. He's not the only LIV player to look awful this week. Only five of the 10 LIV players made the cut, and of those five, only Tyrrell Hatton (T7) and Koepka (T13) are in contention. Jon Rahm, who, like Koepka, was at one time on top of the golf world, is currently in 45th. And no, I haven't forgotten about Patrick Reed. He's the one who could realistically catch Rory McIlroy today, and tomorrow. He's currently six shots back, and he's another cautionary tale. Reed is in limbo right now, no longer with LIV but still suspended from the PGA Tour until this summer. He was adamant earlier this week that he loved his time with LIV, but … again, it doesn't look great. Perhaps it's simply a coincidence that Brooks Koepka is back in contention after officially leaving LIV. Seriously. Golf is a fickle game (duh). You can have your swing for years, and then lose it out of nowhere and never find it again. It happens. But those comments from Brooks weren't by accident. Nothing Koepka says is by accident. He's a lot of things, but ‘vague’ isn't one of them. They were intentional, and they told you everything you needed to know. 

Read moreBrooks Koepka, In Masters Contention Again, Says Quiet Part Out Loud About LIV

ESPN Accused Of Butchering Rory McIlroy's Masters Moment, And Then Lying About It

We've got drama at The Masters, and it's got nothing to do with Rory McIlroy flirting with the course record. Well, scratch that, it does, but not in the way you think. Rory was on a different planet during Friday's Round 2, specifically on the second nine. Yes, the second nine, not the back nine. That's a no-no at Augusta, and I'd very much like to NOT be banished from the grounds. Not that I've ever been invited. Anyway, he was the most dialed-in golfer I've seen on the course in quite some time. Honestly, probably since someone named Tiger Woods back in the day. The defending Masters champ birdied six of his final seven holes, carded a 65, and took a tournament-record six-shot lead into Saturday. The biggest moment of the afternoon came late in Rory's round, when he scrambled out of the trees on 17 and found himself facing a tricky little chip to give himself a shot at saving par. Instead, McIlroy promptly holed out from about 30 yards, sending Augusta into an absolute frenzy. The moment was massive. It gave us our first real Masters roar of the weekend. And … ESPN appeared to miss it live:Not great! Look, this isn't super unusual for a golf broadcast. Honestly, a golf broadcast has to be one of the tougher things to produce – regardless of the network. You have a billion guys on the course at one time, shots are flying left and right, and you're bound to miss one. It's just going to happen.Now, I could certainly argue that there was absolutely no excuse not to be locked in on Rory yesterday, especially during the second nine. The guy was clearly on a heater. You don't take eyes off of him, ever. He's also Rory McIlroy at Augusta, so that should be a hard rule all the time. There were also, what, three groups left on the course at this point? Not a ton of options for ESPN, and they chose Viktor Hovland walking. That's a tough look. What really bothered folks, however, was ESPN not being transparent about the whole thing. Again, it's customary for a golf announcer to slip in a "a moment ago" before letting the shot play out. Jim Nantz has said that for decades, so much so that nobody even notices it anymore. We're numb to it. And, we don't care. That's the thing. We do not care. It may have happened "a moment ago," but to us, it's happening right now. A little disclaimer isn't going to ruin that shot, I promise. It's just not. Is this a huge deal in the grand scheme of things? No. Of course not. It didn't happen on Sunday. It happened late on Friday. It is what it is. But viewers certainly noticed, given that clip has over 1 million views and hundreds of comments. It also comes on the heels of a pretty rocky three days of coverage for ESPN, going all the way back to the Par 3 contest, which was, frankly, disgraceful. Life goes on. We're onto Saturday at The Masters. But, it was a tough look.

Read moreESPN Accused Of Butchering Rory McIlroy's Masters Moment, And Then Lying About It