Brooks Koepka works in his putting in a scene from *Full Swing,* which airs on Netflix from February 15

Rory McIlroy might be the big star, but a producer who made the upcoming Netflix documentary series on an explosive 2022 PGA Tour season reckons Brooks Koepka will "blow people away" with his vulnerabilities.

Koepka, who once said McIlroy wasn't a real rival as he hadn't won a Major since 2014 — "I'm going to crush him," he was telling his associates — features prominently in the eight-part documentary series Full Swing, which hits Irish screens on February 15.

Modelled on the Formula 1 show "Drive to Survive”, it's billed as a series that "follows a diverse group of professional golfers on and off the course across a relentless season of competition — enduring a high-stakes schedule week in and week out on the PGA TOUR."

But for die-hard golf fans, the fact that it was filmed during the LIV Golf disruption was a massive bonus and producers Paul Martin and Chad Mumm got a close-up view of Rory McIlroy's failed bid for The Open at St Andrews, his battle with LIV Golf and his ultimate triumph in the Tour Championship, where he won his third FedEx Cup.

There was also the fairytale story of Matt Fitzpatrick, who they decided to follow from the start and got to see him lift the US Open.

But Munn believes Koepka, famous for his "jock" attitude and macho swagger, is the player who will surprise most as we get to see inside the plush homes of the stars who have made millions from the game - or hundreds of millions for some of the LIV Golf rebels.

"Books Koepka, hands down," Munn said when asked which golf would surprise people most. "He longs for golf. Brooks was the most surprising player in the show by far in terms of, you know, his outward perception, at least the impression that I had and the person that we got to know and got to film with, and I think his episode and his portrayal in the show will blow people away. Sort of what is going on in his head."

Introducing Full Swing. Coming to @Netflix February 15th. pic.twitter.com/ggW3zKGlix
— Chad Mumm (@chadmumm) January 11, 2023

Munn told GQ Magazine that Koepka, who had won four majors in little over two years, was their first port of call when they were planning the series.

They flew to the Bahamas to meet the Floridian who was "initially reluctant to wade into his frustrations", Martin told GQ's Sam Schube.

"But then, as the conversation was winding down, Martin said, Koepka opened up. 'He started to talk about this vulnerability—where he really was, and how he was waking up in the middle of the night,' Martin told me.

"The producers felt like they had glimpsed a side of Koepka that audiences had never seen. Here, they had something they could work with: an aspect of the steely Koepka that his day job forced him to keep hidden."

McIlroy and his team initially turned down Netflix, saying they would wait for Season 2 before committing.
But given the controversy with LIV Golf and McIlroy's role as a spokesman for the PGA Tour, Munn got McIlroy to change his mind.

"At the end of the year, he just was having breakfast, and I sat down with him and I basically asked again, and said, you know, we may never get another chance of this. And I think, you know, the world needs to hear what he had to say. And, he just sort of said, Yes, and an hour later, he had a mic on him was like walking around the locker room. We're like, Oh, my God, he's amazing. Talking about the cutting room floor, it was almost hardest with Rory because everything he says is so thoughtful and so smart and so good."

Munn and Martin had discussed trying to work McIlroy's Northern Ireland background and the Troubles into the story but quickly realised it might be over-egging things.

"I mean, the subtext of PGA versus LIV is IRA versus…." Martin said, drawing laughs from his fellow producers, "it's a stretch."

They didn't need to try too hard for content as the LIV controversy gave the series rocket fuel.

"It gave real stakes and real dilemma to some of the characters," Martin said of the battle between the PGA and LIV Golf. "It's been kind of story dynamite for us."

Trailers show Ian Poulter hurling things in the locker room, and the episode featuring pals Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas as they play cards on a private jet will also get tongues wagging.

Schube writes: "They pass the time by playing a card game: guessing the card drawn from a deck. As if to underscore both the competitive intensity inherent to pro golfers, along with the spoils derived from enduring such intensity, the two are shown betting $1,000 dollars on each draw."

Introducing Full Swing. Coming to @Netflix February 15th. pic.twitter.com/ggW3zKGlix
— Chad Mumm (@chadmumm) January 11, 2023

As for Fitzpatrick, they again struck gold by following him from the start of the season to his dramatic US Open win.

"It's not enough that Matthew Fitzpatrick turned up and won the US Open," Martin told GQ. "It's really: How do we establish Matthew as a character so that in our show when he gets to that 18th hole when he hits it in the bunker, and then he hits that shot onto the green, our audience…

"It needs to feel like Rocky."