Battlin’ Bradley is fighting back
ERIN, Wis. — Keegan Bradley could feel it. He was on the razor’s edge. He felt alive.
As he walked toward the 18th green of Brookside Golf and Country Club on June 5 in Columbus, Ohio, Bradley knew he had survived his latest test, one that not so long ago he would have had no reason to consider.
Of a field of 9,485 competitors playing in sectionals around the country, he became one of the few to qualify for the U.S. Open. Only a few years ago the thought that he would have to endure such a struggle would have been laughable but in golf the road can curve suddenly, like an errant ball’s flight.
When Bradley tees it up this afternoon at the 117th U.S. Open just putting his tee in the ground will be an act of defiance over a game that has tormented him of late. It’s the same game he once had under tight control not so many years ago but golf is a game difficult to dominate for long.
After two years on the Hooters Tour and one on the Web.com circuit, Bradley exploded onto the PGA Tour in 2011, winning the first major he ever entered, the PGA Championship. He won the Byron Nelson as well and was PGA Rookie of the Year. He was on his way.
A year later he finished 10th on the money list, earning $3,910,658, with another Tour win. In 2013 he had a career-best seven top 10 finishes, finished second twice and banked $3.6 million and in 2014 he had six top 10’s, finished tied for fourth at the U.S. Open and second at the Arnold Palmer. And then it stopped.
Bradley had to adjust to a USGA decision to ban the anchored putter while also facing a sudden hitch in his swing that demanded self-examination and hours of work. But how can you work on your swing and develop a new putting stroke at the same time? You can’t. So you struggle. His game hadn’t deserted him all together but it was hiding somewhere, returning from time to time but not often enough to keep him from slipping outside the top 100 on the money list and down the world rankings.
“I wasn’t swinging it my best,” Bradley said yesterday, after a thunderstorm curtailed his final practice round at Erin Hills. “I had to get more technically sound with my swing but I also had to get a new putting stroke and there’s only so many hours a day you can practice.”
He put in the hours but golf is a demanding lover. It wants more time than you can give and so you keep swinging, callouses developing on your hands. If you’re wise, they also develop over your emotions.
“It was definitely a different feeling having to qualify,” Bradley said. “I felt a lot of pressure at the end.”
Now 31 and recently married, it seems another lifetime when he won the PGA.
“I know a lot of people have written me off,” Bradley said. “You can’t let that bother you.”
Bradley has shrugged it off enough to rally with what he called “a halfway decent year,” but it’s not 2011 again yet.
The worst of it came last year when the Ryder Cup was played and he was not selected. Team competition fits Bradley’s fiery temperament and it showed in the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, even though the team lost on the final day. He did the same in 2014 but last year his absence was a jolting moment.
“That was a bummer,” Bradley said. “It was very hard. The world keeps on turning, even if you’re not there. It’s really kind of shocking but it’s no one’s fault but mine.”
Bradley hasn’t enjoyed the past couple years but because this is not his time does not mean he’s out of time. It doesn’t mean golf isn’t the same sport he fell in love with as a kid playing on the frozen links of Vermont and Hopkinton, where he was once Massachusetts state high school champion.
It’s the same game his father Mark taught him. The same game his aunt Pat Bradley dominated so completely she’s in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Most important, it’s the same game he’s loved all his life.
“Golf is everything to me,” Bradley said. “There’s never been a time I thought, ‘That’s it!’ There’s been months it was miserable. I won’t deny that. But I’ll battle every day, every round. I believe if I keep plugging away I’ll come all the way back. That’s part of the process of coming back. Actually, it’s kind of fun.
“The great thing is you have an opportunity every week. I have an opportunity this week to change the course of my career. The player who had to qualify for the U.S. Open and the exempt player have the same chance to win.”
That’s what he wants most to do. To win again. Not for trophies that just collect dust but to be back on the razor’s edge, fighting.
“I absolutely love being in contention,” Bradley said. “I love feeling the heat. At times that holds me back because I can push too hard. But if I’m in contention on Sunday I’ll be so pumped!”
Maybe it will be this Sunday. Maybe a few more Sundays will pass before it happens. Either way, Keegan Bradley will fight the good fight against a confounding game, loving the battle as much as the victory.