Masters caddies on Brooks Koepka-Gary Woodland incident: ‘Guilty’

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland were shown video after their round on Friday by the Masters Tournament Committee. It marked the second time that a review of a potential rules violation on the 15^th hole at Augusta National during Thursday’s first round was necessary.

Originally, the investigation focused on whether Koepka’s caddie, Ricky Elliott, had verbally given advice, which isn’t allowed in the Rules of Golf, pertaining to what club Koepka had used on his second shot at the par 5 to Woodland’s caddie, Brennan “Butchy” Little. On the second occasion, the focus was on whether Koepka had made a hand signal.

“Today was just about my, I guess, my hand and my glove,” said Koepka, who shot 67 to take the clubhouse lead at 12-under 132. “I don’t know if you’re supposed to take your glove off with your fist closed or what now.”

It had become enough of a point of contention on social media that Woodland said that Masters officials told them at scoring that “it was taking a big life.”

After the round Friday, Woodland gave his version of what happened on Thursday.

“At the end of the day, Brooks hit his shot on 15. I asked Butchy if he saw what he hit. He said no. Luckily for us because Brooks ended up hitting 5-iron. I hit 5-iron. I asked Butchy what the club was, and he said it’s a choked-up perfect 5,” Woodland said. “I hit my shot. When we were walking down, I asked Brooks what he hit, and he said 5. If I would have known that, I probably would have hit 6-iron, and I would have hit 6-iron in the middle of the water. Luckily for me, I didn’t know what he hit. That’s the end of it.”

When Koepka was asked what his caddie told the committee, he said, “I think what they said was they were signaling to somebody else or he was signaling to somebody of what it was. It wasn’t Butchy. Because they asked us what we hit walking down the fairway, so they had no idea.”

He added: “I’m taking my glove off. The last thing I’m going to do is give it to Gary Woodland, the U.S. Open champ. And the funny part about it is I think if he would have known we were hitting five, he would have hit six because I don’t think Gary is that short and he’s 10 in front of me, 12 in front of…