Keegan Bradley looks to be on course to give himself a real headache ahead of the Ryder Cup, with the US captain winning the Travelers Championship to put himself right in the mix to make the team at Bethpage.
Of course, Keegan Bradley proved at the BMW Championship last year that he still has the ability to win events on the PGA Tour. But his form earlier in the year suggested that the 39-year-old may be content with the idea of not being in contention to play on his own Ryder Cup team.
However, Bradley has surely now wrapped up a playing spot in September.
The 2011 PGA Championship winner capitalised on a difficult end to the Travelers Championship for Tommy Fleetwood to win by one at TPC River Highlands.
Keegan Bradley details the strange feeling he had over the putt to win the Travelers Championship
The Englishman looked to be in control of the tournament in his quest to win his first PGA Tour title. However, he made a bit of a mess of the 18th hole. And that meant that by the time that Bradley stepped up to his birdie putt on the last, it was to win the entire thing.
Bradley drained the putt. It was a remarkable scene with huge support coming from the galleries. But speaking after his victory, Bradley suggested that he almost had a peculiar feeling stood over the crucial putt.
“Yeah, well, I was on the 18th tee and I looked out, and I couldn’t believe how many people were up there, and then I hit my drive, I hit a perfect drive, and I saw it land in the fairway, and I heard the crowd, like, really cheer when it hit the fairway, and I thought, well, I’ve never heard that before when I’ve hit a drive,” he said.
“Then, you know, when I was walking up to the ball, they’re cheering me on, and then when it was my turn to hit, the crowd really started to, like, cheer. Like, I couldn’t believe it. I had to take a second to, like, get it together here because I needed to hit a shot. Then when it landed and hit the green — because I can’t really see where the ball is, the crowd really went crazy. Then when Tommy hit his putt right behind my coin, they went crazy again.
“Then when I had the putt to win the tournament, they were cheering, and I really felt — I’m not a very calm guy, and I felt, for me, very calm over that putt, which was strange. I had a putt to win the tournament, and I just went through my routine, all the stupid cliches that we all say. I just went through my process, my routine. Tommy’s — sometimes I don’t like when you see the players hit the putt. I saw his break a ton and then when I went and felt it with my feet, I felt it at a half degree, and his broke more like a one or maybe more. And I just decided to trust my read because I didn’t feel it, and I played mine left center and it went in right in the middle, so what an incredible memory.”
Keegan Bradley suggests whether he’s surprised by his new world ranking
Bradley is now a top 10 player in the world. It is an incredible achievement given that the Ryder Cup captaincy is usually given to those in the twilight of their careers.
This has however, been the most successful period of his own career. Bradley has now won a PGA Tour title in each of the last four years. And following his win, he was asked whether his new world ranking has come as any surprise to him.
“It’s the lowest I’ve ever been in the world. When they called me and told me that I was being the Ryder Cup captain, the first thing they said was, We want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1962. And I mean my head was spinning, I didn’t know what they were talking about, but they knew that that was a possibility and that we would have things in place for that,” he added.
“But you know I’m always trying to be the best that I can be, and I feel like I’m playing the best golf of my career right now. A year ago I don’t know if I would have thought I would be seventh in the world, but I certainly thought I would be, you know, contending in tournaments.”
If Bradley was not the captain of the Ryder Cup team, you would say that his win at Travelers almost certainly books his ticket for New York. However, there are clearly some tricky conversations still to be had before we get to Bethpage.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
