King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia, Oct 16 (AFP\/APP):Four-time major-winner Brooks Koepka secured the biggest payday of his career with a $4 million play-off win over close friend Peter Uihlein on the Saudi-funded LIV Golf breakaway tour on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Koepka’s birdie on the Jeddah Invitational’s third play-off hole cost Uihlein an eye-watering $5.875 million as it denied him the winner’s prize plus $8 million for second place in the season standings.<\/p>\n
Uihlein can console himself with $4 million for third place this season, plus $2.125 million for second place on Sunday and $750,000 for winning the team event alongside Koepka.<\/p>\n
Koepka can also add $750,000 to his winnings for the team victory. The 2017-2018 US Open and 2018-2019 PGA Championship winner was emotional afterwards, revealing he had feared for his career while battling injury.<\/p>\n
“The last two years haven’t been fun — it’s been a long road,” said Koepka, 32.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t know if my career was over for half-a-second. I wasn’t sure if I was going to play so it’s nice to be able to come back and be able to win.”<\/p>\n
The $25 million tournament in King Abdullah Economic City, north of Jeddah, was the first LIV stop in Saudi Arabia and the last individual event of a debut season that has split the golf world.<\/p>\n
Koepka, who wrecked his knee in 2021 and has also had hip problems, said he would honour his pledge to buy his brother and team-mate, Chase, a lime-green sports car for winning the team title.<\/p>\n
“I told my brother I’d buy him a Lambo (Lamborghini) if we won the team thing, so now, I’ve got to go buy one,” he said.<\/p>\n
Koepka’s winnings far outstrip his prizes for any of his major titles. He took home $2.16 million from the US Open in 2017 and 2018, and $1.98 million from each of his PGA Championship victories.<\/p>\n
– Four-way tie –<\/p>\n
Uihlein began the day one shot ahead of Koepka and from the shotgun start, the former Challenge Tour room-mates duelled their way around the course on a hot day of stiff breezes and scant birdies.<\/p>\n
Arriving at the 18th, their final hole, they were in a four-way tie for the lead but they both birdied to head into the play-off and leave Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann behind.<\/p>\n
Uihlein escaped from a greenside bunker twice to take it to a third hole but then, from an awkward lie in the sand, he wedged over the green and into the water to leave Koepka with two putts for the win.<\/p>\n
Uihlein, 33, stood to win $12.75 million, nearly tripling his PGA Tour career earnings, if he had seen out the victory.<\/p>\n
LIV’s arrival as a deep-pocketed rival to the US PGA Tour and Europe’s DP World Tour has divided golf, its players and its fans, with critics calling it a “sportswash” of Saudi’s human rights record.<\/p>\n
This week’s tournament, the first on Saudi soil, has also coincided with a political row between Washington and Riyadh over cuts in oil production by the Saudi-led OPEC+ grouping.<\/p>\n
Tiny crowds at the Royal Greens course in King Abdullah Economic City, a remote development north of Jeddah, have not helped LIV live up to its “golf, but louder” slogan this week.<\/p>\n
LIV tournaments, which offer lucrative prizes but no world rankings points, are played over 54 holes with no cut and a limited, 48-man field.<\/p>\n
LIV, backed by Saudi Arabia’s PIF sovereign wealth fund, concludes its debut season with a team event later this month at Trump National in Miami, with an expanded 14-stop circuit planned for next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia, Oct 16 (AFP\/APP):Four-time major-winner Brooks Koepka secured the biggest payday of his career with a $4 million play-off win over close friend Peter Uihlein on the Saudi-funded LIV Golf breakaway tour on Sunday. Koepka’s birdie on the Jeddah Invitational’s […]<\/p>\n
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