Brooks Koepka Credits Jim Crane’s Advice With Changing How He Looks at Business — LIV Golf Star Considers Astros Owner a Mentor

Brooks Koepka is back in Houston, eating with his new buddy Bun B at Trill Burgers, preparing for another golf tournament (this one the first ever LIV Golf tournament in the nation’s fourth largest city). Koepka’s plans also included going to a Houston Astros game and spending a little more time with Astros owner Jim Crane, the man who saved Houston’s PGA Tour event.

Koepka considers Crane a friend, credits advice from the shipping tycoon turned baseball steward with changing how he looks at business himself.

“I don’t want to say mentor, but I guess you could say that,” Koepka tells PaperCity of his relationship with Crane. “Just kind of taking me under his wing a little bit. I’ve had a great time. It’s been fun to hear about the business side off everything that he does. His career coming from Point A to Point B.”

Koepka, one of the best players of his generation, a five time Major winner, tells Crane, a one or two handicap golfer who was a scratch player in his younger years, about the game he loves at the highest level. Crane shares some of the business insights he learned over his own remarkable rise with Koepka. This is a relationship that goes far beyond what tour Koepka is playing on at any particular time.

It’s a real friendship, the kind of friendship outside of the often cloistered world of professional golf that Koepka, something of a maverick free thinker, seeks out. Koepka reached out to Bun B himself after trying one of the rapper turned business mogul’s Trill Burgers at a charity golf tournament at Crane’s Floridian club and loving it. Not long after that reach out, Bun and Brooks hit the links together. Koepka says that Bun B is a better golfer than many might expect.

Koepka and Crane got to know each other in Florida where Koepka lives on the water in Jupiter and Crane owns The Floridian, a private golf club not far away. “Jim’s always been fantastic,” Koepka tells PaperCity. The man who will attempt to win his third US Open the week after this LIV tournament at the Golf Club of Houston credits Crane with introducing him to the city of Houston and all it has to offer.

“It’s a great community here and it’s amazing how awesome everybody is,” Koepka says. “So it’s fun to be back.”

“I don’t want to say mentor, but I guess you could say that. Just kind of taking me under his wing a little bit. I’ve had a great time. It’s been fun to hear about the business side off everything that he does.” — Brooks Koepka on Jim Crane

Brooks Koepka and Talor Gooch’s Houston Appreciation

Koepka last spent significant time in Houston during the 2021 Houston Open, the PGA Tour event Crane saved and brought back into the city at Memorial Park. Brooks Koepka is on the LIV tour now, along with some of the other biggest names in golf, navigating a fractured professional golf world that shows no real signs of merging back together full time any time soon. But he’s still found his way back to Houston to play a big money tournament, a new dad who spent his wedding anniversary at Trill Burgers with his Smash GC teammates Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak and Graeme McDowell.

Gooch is another top golfer in this LIV Golf field with a tight connection with Jim Crane. Gooch and Crane were even teammates at the Dunhill Links golf tournament in Scotland the last couple of years. This is a tournament that has celebrities playing with the pros a la Pebble Beach. Gooch to became something of a regular at the Houston Open during its Crane revival before jumping to LIV.

Crane also helped make Gooch a huge Houston convert.

“He’s so great for the city,” Gooch tells PaperCity. “So great for the baseball team. So great for golf. And just great for Houston in general.”

If the PGA Tour ever wants to make this announced merger with LIV Golf actually happen it might be wise for it to turn to Jim Crane to help. Crane is one golf guy who is respected and liked on both sides of the divide.

But that is a much larger (and thorn-filled issue with Saudi Arabian money and influence looming over everything) for another day. On this one, Brooks Koepka is enjoying one of his favorite burgers, introducing his teammates (another stark LIV difference) to a slice of the Houston he’s come to know. Hitting his new buddy Bun B’s place.

“We look at ourselves here at Trill Burgers as a cultural meeting point for people,” Bun B says. “We love to have people come in. Local people. Out of town people. We believe it’s a great reflection of the culture and the diversity and the inclusivity of Houston.

“. . . We love hosting. Showing that hospitality. We show them how diverse the city is. How welcoming the city is.”

With a golf tournament that’s anything but traditional looming just ahead (play kicks off Friday and runs through Sunday). In a LIV Golf event, all the golfers tee off at the same time (starting at every hole on the course), music is playing and many of the usual traditions are cast aside for something of a 54 hole sprint to the finish.

To say it’s a little different is like saying that Mad Max creator George Miller looks at the world in a slightly dark way. It’s a departure in the same way that traveling on your own Lear Jet is a departure from going by Greyhound.

“I think you would be, right?” Koepka says when I ask if first time LIV spectators are surprised by the experience. “It’s definitely a different type of golf tournament. You’re going to come and there’s music playing. You’re going to have a good time. It’s definitely kid friendly. It’s everything you want.

“If you go play with your guys back home, there’s music going, everybody’s having a good time. Good vibes. It’s definitely condensed. You don’t have to see your favorite superstar tee off at 7:30 and then the next guy tees off at 2:30. It’s a little bit more condensed. And everybody’s there for four hours. Five hours.”

Brooks Koepka, who became a dad for the first time last August when he and his model wife Jena Sims welcomed their son Crew, is back in Houston. Looking as comfortable and confident as ever the week before another Major. Taking a little time to hang with his business guru Jim Crane.

For Koepka, this LIV golf life certainly seem to be rolling along.