Although Brooks Koepka is the highest-ranked player in the entirety of his team Smash GC, the 5-time major champ still hopes for everyone to think that they are the best among them. The captain of Smash GC recently shuffled his team. With his brother Chase Koepka’s relegation and Matthew Wolff traded off with Talor Gooch, Koepka’s team has taken a new shape.

With LIV Golf 2024 season’s first game only a few weeks away, the world number twenty recently unveiled his wishes for the team to become more competitive and how he wants the new member Gooch to think he is No.1.

Brooks Koepka faces the rising star on LIV Golf as the perfect competitor

The 2023 season was not as happening for Brooks Koepka’s team as he would have expected. Although he was riding high individually and won three LIV Golf events in the 2023 season, his team Smash GC lacked the competitiveness that the captain had in himself.

The mid-season rift with Matthew Wolff and the ordinary game from his brother Chase Koepka has his team fall on the LIV Golf team ranks. As a result, the team changed and the 2023 LIV Golf Individual Champion Talor Gooch was added to Smash GC. After finalizing his team, Koepka has only one thing on mind, that is to raise the competitive spirits.

Talking with LIV Golf, Koepka said that he hopes that Gooch “thinks he’s the No.1 guy on the team”. The captain believed it to be a “good thing,” insisting that it would fix “the competitiveness we’ve been lacking.” Complimenting Gooch, Koepka called the 3x LIV Golf winner “a competitor” and “gritty.” And wished that other members, Jason Kokrak and Graeme McDowell, would also think they are no.1.

The 33-year-old expressed that raised aggression in the team would help everyone. He said, what it’s going to do is make everyone “play better and work harder,” resulting in “success on the individual side for them and success for the team side.” The former RangeGoats GC’s ace Gooch also resonated with the competitiveness he has been applauded for by the captain.

Talor Gooch wants to make Koepka the second-best scorer

The latest recruit of Smash GC is indeed competitive, as captain Brooks Koepka stated. Talor Gooch was the best scorer on his previous team and wanted to keep the streak on Smash GC as well. Talking about Koepka, Gooch first called him the “best player of this generation” and the “face of the team.”

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But later said, “I’m excited to be there to hopefully make him the second-best scorer on the team over the next few years.” The 32-year-old then joked that neither of them was concerned with the no.1 or 2 rank and was mainly focused on winning at the end of the week.

The new Smash GC will debut on LIV Golf Mayakoba in Mexico. The event is scheduled in February, starting on 2nd and ending on 4th. Will Gooch’s presence affect the team for good? Only time will tell.

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