On the upswing
Bradley’s game shows improvement
NORTON — Success quickly found New Englander Keegan Bradley. A winner in just his 16th PGA Tour start at the Byron Nelson in May 2011, he then joined Willie Park Sr. (1860 British Open, the first major), Francis Ouimet (1913 U.S. Open) and Ben Curtis (2003 British) a couple months later as the only players to win a major in their first try at the PGA Championship.
Just as easily as the victories came, however, they dried up. It has been more than five years since Bradley hoisted a PGA Tour trophy, the 2012 WGC Bridgestone.
There have been plenty of close calls for the native of Woodstock, Vt., who helped Hopkinton High to a state title in the fall of 2003 before a successful college career at St. John’s, including two second-place finishes in 2013 and another in ’14. But last season he only had two top-10 finishes in 26 starts and was 103rd in the FedEx Cup standings, missing out on the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Last year also was the first in which players were not allowed to use anchored putting strokes, something Bradley did until 2014 with a long putter. Using a traditional putter, his numbers steadily declined. He ranked 47th in overall putting in 2013, but last year he was 183rd.
“I never thought that would happen,” Bradley said of missing the last three stages of the playoffs. “In the long run, I think it helped me. It gave me a little more time off to work on my game and get things in order. Hopefully it will pay off this year.”
The results showed. He finished sixth in Malaysia in October and tied for seventh two weeks later in Las Vegas at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.
He entered April inside the top 25, but a run of seven tournaments with three missed cuts and no top 25s knocked him back to No. 56.
He has bounced back beginning with New England’s other tour event, the Travelers Championship in Connecticut. He had back-toback top-10 finishes, and of his past 28 rounds, only five have been above par. He enters this week 47th in points, nearly assured of being one of the top 70 to reach the BMW Championship in two weeks. He still has work to do to make the top 30 at the Tour Championship.
“I’m playing a lot better,” Bradley said. “I’ve had to put a lot of work in, and now it’s just a matter of going out there and doing it.
“I get excited every time I get to tournaments now. I feel like maybe this is the week, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s next week or next month, but I know it’s coming.”
He had himself in contention a week ago in the Northern Trust, the first leg of the playoffs, before a disastrous final-round 80. Now he’s back at TPC Boston and couldn’t be happier. It is a place where he has played well, finishing in the top 25 each year from 201215 after missing the cut during his rookie campaign.
“I haven’t contended at all, but it’s definitely a course where I can shoot some good scores,” said Bradley, whose best round here was a 63 in the third round in 2012.
He hopes this event sticks around. It has been rumored the FedEx Cup playoffs will be shortened to avoid having to go headto-head with the NFL. The belief is that this will be the odd tournament out. The first hint that change is in the air was earlier this month when the PGA Tour and PGA of America announced the PGA Championship would be moved from August to May and The Players Championship would go from May to March beginning in 2019.
Also leading to uncertainty is that most of the 2018 schedule has not been released, only the early events that begin this fall.
“I’d be disappointed,” Bradley said of the potential loss of the event. “It would be a bummer. I want to come here every year. We love it here. Hopefully they can figure out a way to keep this one.”
Bradley said he had no idea about possible scenarios in which the event might lose playoff status and be moved elsewhere on the calendar.
“That’s a question for the tour, but I’d love to have more events in New England,” he said. “I think a lot of people would too.”