CALEDON, Ontario – The grip is the first thing, and the last thing, a golfer can control. Brooks Koepka lost it on Saturday in the worst week imaginable to lose it.
Six days before the start of the 126th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills – the course where he became a back-to-back champion in 2018 – Koepka arrived at the third round of the RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley and found that his left hand had stopped working. Not stiff, not tight. Numb. The ring finger and the pinkie, he said afterward, would not close around the club.
Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard reported that a trainer administered treatment to Koepka’s left elbow before he teed off Saturday and then walked all 18 holes alongside him. Koepka shot a two-over 72. He had entered the day two shots off the lead.
“I don’t know what it is,” Koepka said when he emerged from the scoring area. “I’m struggling to grip the club with my ring finger and pinkie finger, so can’t grip it. So the club is kind of just, my fingers would come loose, it was kind of numb. I don’t know what the deal was, but hopefully we’ll figure it out.”
He said the symptoms began on the driving range, before the round. He had felt fine during his warm-up. Then he went to grip a club and the hand simply was not there.
“Then I got to the range and went to grip the club, and I just couldn’t even grip it,” Koepka said. “So it lasted all day. Felt better the last few holes. I don’t know if that’s just the meds kicked in or what it is.”
The timing is the thing that makes this more than an ordinary mid-season ailment. The last time the U.S. Open was played at Shinnecock Hills, on the windswept heathland of Long Island’s East End, Koepka won it by a shot over Tommy Fleetwood, finishing one over par in conditions the USGA later acknowledged had pushed the course too far. It was his second consecutive U.S. Open title, a feat not achieved since Curtis Strange in 1988 and 1989. He arrived in Canada this week appearing to have rediscovered some of the putting form that has eluded him since he returned to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf in January, shooting a 64 in Friday’s second round to climb to a share of seventh, two off the lead.
Then came the numbness.
Neurological symptoms in the hand – numbness or tingling in the ring and pinkie fingers specifically – are consistent with ulnar nerve compression, which can originate at the elbow, the wrist, or the shoulder. The condition is not uncommon in golfers. It does not automatically threaten a player’s ability to compete. But it does explain why Koepka received treatment at the elbow, and it also raises a question that no one around him appeared to be able to answer Saturday: what caused it, and can it be reliably settled in less than a week?
Koepka is not the only significant name heading to Shinnecock Hills with a medical question attached. Collin Morikawa has been managing a back issue since March; ESPN reported the two-time major champion said this week he still struggles to trust it under pressure. Viktor Hovland, who skipped last week’s Memorial Tournament with a back injury, has been listed as a starter at the U.S. Open without having played competitive golf since the PGA Championship. Whether either man arrives at full capacity is unknown.
For Koepka, the question carries a particular historical weight. His career has always run through injury and skepticism in a peculiar loop. He won the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock after spending five months off the PGA Tour with a wrist injury, returning to win back-to-back majors. His 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill, his fifth major, came after years of public doubt about whether he would ever win another one after his knee surgery in 2021. Each time, some part of the medical picture has been murky. Each time, he has played through it.
His 2026 season, since the return to the PGA Tour, has been uneven. He tied for ninth at the Cognizant Classic and for 13th at THE PLAYERS, but missed the cut at three events, and tied for 55th at last month’s PGA Championship at Aronimink. The putts that refused to drop for most of the year finally started falling at TPC Toronto this week. Now the grip may be the problem instead. As Golf Digest noted, he has never experienced anything like it before – and the U.S. Open is less than a week away.
The field at the Canadian Open’s final round is stacked with U.S. Open contenders using the week as a tune-up. Jackson Suber, the 26-year-old American rookie who led after 54 holes, will be there. Wyndham Clark, the 2023 U.S. Open champion, sits in contention. Tommy Fleetwood, who shot 63 on the final day at Shinnecock in 2018 to come within a stroke of Koepka, is in the hunt again.
Koepka will play his final round in Canada on Sunday and then head east to Long Island. What he finds in his left hand when he grips a driver on the first tee at Shinnecock Hills next Thursday is the only question about his week that actually matters. He does not know the answer yet. Neither does anyone else.
