Brooks Koepka withdrew from this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge late on Sunday night, and the PGA Tour confirmed his exit after he finished tied for 14th at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. The five-time major champion had gone 63, 69, 66 and 68 over four rounds and ended at 18-under par before deciding not to tee it up again this week at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
The withdrawal leaves the field at Colonial at 132 players. Denny McCarthy and David Ford also pulled out, while Jimmy Stanger and Brice Garnett stepped in as replacements for a tournament that carries a $9.9 million purse, with $1.78 million and 500 FedExCup points going to the winner. Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth were not entered in the event.
Koepka had built momentum since returning to the PGA Tour earlier this year through a Returning Membership program after a four-year spell on LIV Golf. He moved up six spots to 63rd in the season-long FedEx Cup standings after Sunday’s finish, and he remains just outside the top 100 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Since coming back, he has recorded six top-20 finishes in 11 starts, a steady run that has made his schedule one of the more closely watched on Tour.
The timing matters because Koepka had already been on the road for three consecutive weeks, and Colonial is one of the Tour’s more demanding stops, a historic par-70 test that leaves little room for a player carrying a heavy load. His next scheduled start is the RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto from 11–14 June, while he is not eligible for next week’s Signature Event at the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village because he is not in either the Aon Swing 5 or Aon Next 10 positions.
Wyndham Clark’s 60 on Sunday to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson only sharpened the contrast with Koepka’s week: one player finished with a low round that changed the leaderboard, while another left with the kind of result that still keeps him moving in the right direction. For Koepka, the question now is not whether he has found form again, but how many starts he can stack before the calendar and the ranking points start to matter even more.
