Brooks Koepka just accused his fellow PGA Tour players of cheating. The five-time major champion said he has seen competitors improving their lies in the rough, and he believes it happens more often than people realize. The reason is simple: referees, cameras, and playing partners cannot watch every shot.
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More surprisingly, he admitted that he once witnessed an incident he considered particularly bad but chose not to report it to a rules official. Koepka shared the details during a conversation with Dan Rapaport on the Dan on Golf YouTube channel, ahead of the Farmers Insurance Skins Game.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed a lot of guys do it. I think guys get away with it more because you’re not on top of them. I might be over there hitting my shot, but you’re over here in the left rough. And guys definitely do it. It’s just, how are you going to prove it?” Brooks Koepka told Rapaport.
The conversation became more interesting when Rapaport asked whether Koepka would confront another player or alert an official if he noticed something questionable.
Koepka acknowledged that he would speak up if the situation were “blatantly obvious.” However, the American professional also recognized how difficult it can be to determine whether a player has actually broken a rule.
“Yeah. If it’s blatantly obvious. Yeah. But it’s hard to tell. Like you get in a rough and guys There’s one I saw this year that was really bad. Not going to name the player. He’s not playing in this, but it was pretty bad. And then you see the takeaway, and you can see the whole ball,” Koepka added.
He then recalled an incident from the 2026 season that particularly stood out to him.
“It was a chip, he added. “I saw it. He went for the backswing right here and you could just see the whole ball.”
Despite describing the incident as particularly bad, Koepka admitted that he did not approach a rules official. Golfers are required to speak up against such cheating.
Rule 20.1c(2) addresses this directly. In stroke play, if a player knows or believes another competitor has breached, or might have breached, a rule and that player does not recognize or is ignoring the issue, the observer should inform the competitor, their marker, a referee, or the Committee.
A well-known example of players challenging one another came during the 2022 Players Championship. Daniel Berger, Viktor Hovland, and Joel Dahmen disagreed over where Berger’s ball had last crossed the edge of a penalty area on the 16th hole at TPC Sawgrass.
Hovland openly questioned Berger’s proposed drop. Dahmen supported Hovland’s assessment, and Berger ultimately dropped farther back. Such actions are considered a breach under Rule 8.1 of the Rules of Golf.
The rule follows one of golf’s basic principles. Golfers must play the course as they find it. Under Rule 8.1a, a player cannot move, bend, or break growing vegetation if doing so improves any of these conditions. The rule also prohibits actions such as pressing down sand or loose soil and altering the ground to gain an advantage.
However, Rule 8.1b(4) allows a golfer to ground the club lightly immediately in front of or behind the ball. Similarly, Rule 8.1b(7) also allows a player to move, bend, or break growing vegetation during the actual backswing for a stroke that is then made.
Many examples show how improving a lie can be penalized. For instance, officials penalized Patrick Reed at the 2019 Hero World Challenge for improving conditions around his golf ball.
He received a two-stroke penalty, changing his score on the hole from a bogey six to a triple-bogey eight.
Asked whether he believed Reed had cheated, Brooks Koepka answered affirmatively.
“I don’t know what he was doing, building sand castles in the sand,” Koepka said.
The same occurred at The Open 2026, where Bryson DeChambeau received a two-stroke penalty for improving his intended swing area.
However, there are also incidents where alleged cheating accusations are denied. A more recent example came at the 2026 BMW Championship at Bellerive. Viewers accused Wyndham Clark of improving his lie while checking different clubs behind the ball. Clark denied doing so and received no penalty.
“I think any player, when they’re trying to judge a lie, takes out different clubs to see what it feels like,” Clark said about the accusations. “I never fully put the club down behind it. I don’t think anything of it. When the cameras are on you, they’re going to find anything.”
This is not the first time the five-time major winner raised such a question.
In a February 2020 interview with SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, he recalled watching an unnamed playing partner improve a lie during a U.S. Open. The player reportedly drove into thick rough, took out a three-wood, and pressed down the grass behind the ball. He then switched to a wedge and played a short recovery shot.
The latest interview continues that earlier position. Despite previously saying he would speak up, Brooks Koepka once again described an incident in which he chose to remain silent.