Brooks Koepka attacking this year’s Masters with a different outlook

AUGUSTA, Ga. —  Brooks Koepka tried to put his fist through the back window of his Mercedes courtesy car during the Masters last year, after a second consecutive 75 sent him home for the weekend. If there ever were a Brooks Koepka kind of thing to do at Augusta National, punching a pane of glass after a dispiriting round of golf not once, but twice, would be among the leaders in the clubhouse.

He wants to be seen as an athlete, as a linebacker who happens to hit golf balls instead of quarterbacks. Koepka’s father, Bob, was a baseball and basketball player who became a college pitcher at West Virginia Wesleyan, and he used to get all over his high school classmates who played golf and wore letterman jackets.

“I didn’t think it was a sport,” Bob Koepka said.

His son doesn’t think it’s a sport either, but he tries his damnedest to make it one. On the 15th fairway Thursday, after he landed his 5-iron shot on the green and before dear friend Gary Woodland hit his approach, a camera sure seemed to catch Koepka stretching his hand to emphasize five fingers before pulling off his glove. And the camera sure seemed to catch Koepka’s caddie Ricky Elliott mouthing the word “five” in the direction of Woodland’s caddie, Brennan Little.

All parties denied breaking the often silly rules of golf that forbid players from sharing such information in the name of protecting the field. Never mind that caddies often identify their players’ club choices for TV spotters in full view of their competitors, and that it isn’t an uncommon practice for caddies to quietly share a little intel. Koepka doesn’t have much use for the written and unwritten rules of a supposed gentleman’s game.

It was a Thursday at the Masters, not a Sunday, and Koepka likely figured helping out a buddy was the bygone equivalent of a runner on second base relaying a catcher’s signs to his teammate at the plate. Approached by The Post on Friday as he sat in a cart primed to whisk him away, Elliott said that he’d been unfairly criticized and that he didn’t provide club information to Little.

“No,” he said. “It was just a completely different situation.” Asked if he was mouthing the word “five” to someone else, the caddie responded, “No comment. It’s all sorted.”

Yes, it all sorted itself out. Woodland denied knowing what iron Koepka had hit, and Koepka denied flexing his hand to help a former U.S. Open champ, of all opponents. Whatever. This wasn’t exactly the  Astros banging on trash cans, nor was it any indication that Koepka makes like a 24-handicapper and kicks his (or his teammate’s) ball out from behind bushes when nobody’s looking.

It just means that Koepka is an athlete, and athletes are always looking for a competitive edge that will benefit themselves or, in this case, their friends.

“Brooks has never been a golf nerd,” his swing coach, Claude Harmon III, told me after Koepka won the first of his two Long Island majors, the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock. “I think he shows that if you’re 13 or 14 years old and you’re playing basketball or football or lacrosse or you’re a wrestler, whatever sport you’re doing, you look at somebody like Brooks and you go, ‘I can do that. I can look like that. I want to do that.’

“When I was growing up, golf wasn’t cool. Golfers weren’t really considered to be athletes. But I think what [Koepka’s] done and what he’ll continue to do is changing that.”

Koepka idolized Tiger Woods, who brought a muscular approach to a soft-bellied game. Though he lacked Tiger’s ability to treat minors like majors, Koepka could channel Woods’ focus and ferocity at the most important events. He won four majors in two-year stretch, and even beat Woods head-to-head in one of them.

But multiple injuries derailed him, including one he almost gleefully described as a shattered kneecap suffered after he tried to self-fix a dislocation caused by a fall at his home. He’s an athlete, after all, and a shattered kneecap sure sounds more like a contact-sport thing.

Koepka admitted that the injuries played a role in his nine-figure LIV Golf money grab, though he maintained he’s still happy with his career choice. Either way, he looks to be all the way back at the Masters, where he has managed 11 birdies and one eagle against only one bogey over 36 holes.

When Koepka is rolling like this, he’s the world’s toughest golfer to chase down. It wouldn’t shock many if some name contenders responded to this Brooks bash by crashing back to earth, like those Augusta National trees that fell and fell hard during  storms Friday.

When the second round was suspended for good in the early evening, Koepka held a three-shot lead over Jon Rahm. He is determined not to repeat his silent ride home from the 2022 Masters, after he twice tried and failed to put his fist through his car’s back window.

This year, a good bet says a healthy Brooks Koepka will go smashing right through.