AUGUSTA, Ga. – The recovery timeline was about 18 months.
That’s how long Brooks Koepka’s doctors told him it’d take for his surgically repaired knee to fully function again.
That prognosis was unacceptable, of course, and so with three weeks until the 2021 Masters, Koepka pushed himself to the breaking point, chomping down on a toilet in agony as they bent his knee, tears streaming down his face. Defying his doctors’ orders, he labored up and down the hills of Augusta National, looking for the path of least resistance. He winced in anticipation of any downhill lies that would put his dislocated kneecap in front of his heel and send a searing jolt of pain through his sculpted body.