Any notion that the decision to appoint Keegan Bradley as the next US Ryder Cup captain would mark the start of the 38-year-old winding down his playing career has surely been put to bed with his victory at the BMW Championship.
Of course, one of the reasons that Keegan Bradley‘s appointment as Ryder Cup captain was so surprising was that the 2011 PGA champion had appeared to be enjoying something of a career revival, having found himself in the top 20 in the world golf rankings when the announcement came.
Tom Kim’s agonising finish at the St Jude Championship saw Bradley earn a place in the field for the BMW Championship at Castle Pines. With that, few would have anticipated that Bradley would enjoy the kind of week in Colorado which would book his ticket to The Tour Championship. However, he would go on to steal the show.
Bradley won by one shot over Adam Scott, Ludvig Åberg and Sam Burns. And for many, it was his approach on 17 which sealed victory, with Bradley finding the par five green in two after a stunning shot with his five iron from 232 yards.
What Keegan Bradley did which many others didn’t at the BMW Championship
And speaking on The Smylie Show, Smylie Kaufman suggested that that moment highlighted what Bradley did so much better than most of the field at Castle Pines, with the veteran not afraid to take on what appeared to be the riskier shot at that moment.
“Two things I really loved about that, first, what you mentioned about the number that he gave, referring back to the day before – that recall is so important for a player to have confidence. I do that all the time when looking at the day before if guys had similar numbers, I try to refer to, okay, well yesterday they had this number, they hit this shot, this should be comfortable for them. Just Scotty’s mind with all the numbers walking up that massive hill, to be that sharp on the 71st hole was excellent caddying, so definitely credit to Scotty for helping him out there,” he said.
“But the second thing, the execution by Keegan on that shot, we saw countless guys not be able to hold that green just with how uphill you were hitting it, the landing angle that it’s coming in on is not going to be high. But what I loved from Keegan that I felt like more people should have done this this week, when anytime players had shots back into the wind or a forced carry, they felt like they needed to play knockdown shots and just not get it up into the air because they were worried about getting it up in the air, is it going to get hit by the wind or just leaving it up to the conditions.
“And I loved how Keegan with that five iron hoisted it, I didn’t see enough guys try to hoist shots this week because they were worried about the higher you hit it, the longer it stays in the air and the further it could go. The fact that he was able to get it up in the air with a long iron – many guys were hitting flat long irons – so he gets it up in the air and lands it in a perfect spot and has a 15-footer for eagle that basically gives him the cushion where he can basically lag a three-footer on 18 to win by one.”
Stepping up in the big moment ahead of the Presidents Cup
Certainly, the form book was largely thrown out of the window at the BMW Championship due to the altitude, which some surprise names really struggled to deal with.
Scottie Scheffler could not hide his frustration during the week, while Rory McIlroy snapped his driver on the final day. Five of the eight players who finished in a tie for fifth or better over the week were actually outside the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings heading into the week.
There is now a real debate to be had over whether Bradley should get a pick for the Presidents Cup, and there will be many eyes on how he fares at East Lake in the coming days.
The way he made the dream shot on 17 when all of the pressure was on will surely not have escaped the attention of Jim Furyk ahead of Montreal.
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