Joe Buck and Brooks Koepka have long moved past the sportscaster’s famed U.S. Open blunder involving the golfer’s now-wife, Jena Sims, but it’s a moment the ESPN star felt “sick about.”
Buck, 56, recalled the infamous mishap Wednesday on “The JustIn Time Podcast” with Justin Kutcher, who ignited the stroll down memory lane after apologizing to Buck for providing him with bad intel while on air during the 2006 NLCS.
“You do your best, you did your best, you made a mistake,” Buck said. “I do my best every time I go on the air, I make countless mistakes. Not everything that comes out of my mouth is something that I’m proud of, not every note I have is right, and we live in a world that’s more gotcha than pat ya on the back.”
That’s when Buck pivoted to the LIV Golf star’s U.S. Open triumph in 2017, when he mistook Sims for Koepka’s ex, Becky Edwards, on Fox’s coverage of the major tournament.
“I had that same thing happen to me a couple times,” Buck said. “… That same thing happened to me with Brooks Koepka and getting the wrong name of his wrong girlfriend, and that was on a note card from a guy who helped me countless times.
“During that week of the U.S. Open, making me appear way smarter than I actually am or way more well-read or way more well-versed in the PGA Tour than I otherwise would have been, and he handed me a card with the wrong name on there, I read the card and then, [Brad] Faxon corrected and said, no, that’s his new girlfriend, Jena Sims, I felt, that I was sick about. Because we had been taking punch after punch on Fox Golf, and it was like the last thing we had on the air before we said goodbye, and we’d been on for five days, all day and it was, it was a lot of work and I was like, oh my God, I let everybody down by that stupid, embarrassing moment, and you feel like the world’s talking about it and really nobody cares.”
Buck did get it right the following year when Koepka secured his second straight U.S. Open win.
“Now, he and Jena again celebrate the U.S. Open championship,” he said on the broadcast, per For The Win.
Sims, 36, who went on to marry Koepka, 35, in 2022, has since forgiven Buck.
“Of course,’’ the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model said in 2018, according to USA Today. “He clarified my name this week, so I appreciate it. But I didn’t really care.
“He talked to Brooks. They met up at that baseball game last year, but I was working so I didn’t get to go and experience that.’’
Koepka’s last major victory was at the PGA Championship in 2023, the same year he and Sims welcomed their first child, son Crew.