FORT WORTH, Texas – Brooks Koepka joined a chorus of players who wouldn’t want to play a Ryder Cup without fans.
“The fans make that event. The fans make that special,” he said Wednesday at the Charles Schwab Challenge. “If we're not playing in front of fans, it's just like us playing a game in Florida. There's no fist pumping there. There's no excitement. The fans create the excitement for the Ryder Cup.”
Rory McIlroy has expressed similar thoughts in recent weeks, as did Jon Rahm on Tuesday.
Given the relative reluctance among players to play the biennial event without fans, Koepka was asked if he could envision a scenario where a player would boycott the matches if it were played without fans.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think there's a lot more that goes into that, why they would be playing, personally. As players, I think we all know why they're playing or why we would play.”
McIlroy didn’t think it would come to such extremes.
“I'm pretty sure they won't carry on without spectators, so I don't think that [a boycott] would have to be an option that I would have to consider,” McIlroy said.