Brooks Koepka wanted to use his PGA Tour season break to return home and “re-evaluate” the gap between his performances and his usual standards. Two months later, it appears his reassessment may already be paying dividends. At St. Andrews this week, the five-time major champion looked far more confident on the greens, posting one of his better scores this season. Yet the turnaround may have less to do with a sudden change in form and more with a subtle change in equipment. Koepka’s putting resurgence could indicate that time away from the Tour helped him identify—and address—the genuine issue holding his game back.
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Per Golf Monthly, Koepka is competing at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship with a club he has not carried in his bag for years. The change appears to have paid immediate dividends. He was eight under after two rounds at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, before shooting a 70 on Saturday. Koepka then saved his best for the Old Course on Sunday, firing a 66 that included two eagles—the second coming from 40 feet on the last hole. The spectacular finish lifted him to 16 under par and, perhaps most significantly, into the top 10 for the first time since March.
As for the reason behind Koepka’s improved performance, an unexpected equipment switch could be it. The five-time major champion has replaced his long-standing TaylorMade M2 fairway wood, in his bag since 2017, with the TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini driver. Golf Monthly noted that the new club appears to have 13.5 degrees of loft, compared with 16.5 degrees on the M2, while retaining the same Mitsubishi shaft.
The change is notable, given Koepka’s well-documented reluctance to alter his equipment. His M2 and Nike utility iron have been among the most enduring clubs in his bag, so parting with one of them is a significant departure from his usual approach. Whether the R7 Quad Mini becomes a permanent fixture, however, remains to be seen.
Koepka’s recent resurgence comes after a tough stretch through much of the 2026 season. Although he began the year strongly, finishing tied ninth at the Cognizant Classic in March before adding a tied-12th finish at the Masters, that momentum got disrupted at the RBC Canadian Open in June. After opening with a 64 and leading the field in strokes gained putting through 54 holes, Koepka’s tournament ended abruptly when his hand went numb on Saturday. He withdrew before the final round, later explaining, “I’m struggling to grip the club with my finger and my pinky finger.”
From there, Koepka struggled to rediscover any rhythm on the course. He returned to Shinnecock Hills, where he had won the 2018 U.S. Open, only to miss the cut at 10 over par. He then missed the cut at the Scottish Open, finished 28th at The Open Championship, and later withdrew from the Rocket Classic for personal reasons.
Throughout that stretch, Koepka also kept searching for answers on the greens, cycling through several putters to find consistency. He tested TaylorMade Spider models, a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R, and even his old Newport 2 blade before eventually settling on a prototype Phantom 3 with a Teryllium insert—the same style of putter associated with some of his major-winning success.
The numbers, however, made it clear where Koepka’s biggest struggles were coming from. Before the Wyndham Championship, he ranked 28th on Tour in SG: Overall and 8th in SG: Approach, but fell to 116th in SG: Putting and 132nd in putts per round. Koepka acknowledged the problem, admitting the results were not coming “mainly because of the putter.”
Even before the Canadian Open, Koepka had acknowledged that the putter was becoming a problem, admitting it was “kind of letting him down.”
Despite a frustrating 2026 campaign, Koepka was determined to use the season break to step back and reevaluate his game. At St Andrews, that decision appears to be paying off. The historic venue has long brought out the best in him: Koepka tied for ninth there in 2014 before finishing tied for tenth in 2015, and he has previously described St Andrews as his favorite course in the world. A win this week would have added another significant chapter to that history, making him the first American to win the event.
That said, Koepka still has full PGA Tour status through 2028, thanks to his 2023 PGA Championship victory, although his most recent win came at LIV Golf Greenbrier in 2024. As the season winds down, he now turns his attention to a handful of European events, and potentially a few fall starts on the PGA Tour. The big question is whether the TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini driver remains in his bag—or proves to be a short-term experiment that helped spark his recent turnaround.