Keegan Bradley’s dilemma, 5 strange WDs | Monday Finish

Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where I’m officially naming myself playing captain of this column. To the news…

GOLF STUFF I LIKE

The captain’s moment.

On Sunday I was wishing for a moment that Keegan Bradley hadn’t been named Ryder Cup captain. Not because I think he’s unfit or undeserving; I’ve been a vocal Keegan fan for my entire adult life. But as Bradley finished off a dream moment — a second Travelers Championship win in three years in front of the New England fans he knows and loves — I felt some sadness that, even in the most incredible moment of his summer, the public’s attention would immediately fast-forward to the Ryder Cup.

But after listening to Bradley I realized that was a silly and unnecessary fear.

For one thing, he enjoyed the hell out of his victory, and celebrated accordingly as his 72nd-hole birdie putt found the bottom of the cup.

“Sometimes when I watch guys win tournaments and they don’t do anything I don’t get it because this is your chance to explode,” he said.

And for another, his role in the captaincy actually elevated his every appearance and experience. It’s elevated his entire life. He’s long served as the unofficial captain of New England golf; now he’s Captain Keegan, head of the entire golfing country. He feels the love when he’s pumping gas, he said. When he’s in restaurants. And definitely when he’s playing New England’s only PGA Tour event.

“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 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.”

Like me, and probably you, Bradley was gutted for Tommy Fleetwood, whose 72nd-hole bogey opened the door for him to win outright.

“He’s just an unbelievable player, and he’s fighting so hard to get his first win. It’s a weird thing to be on the other side of that,” Bradley said. But he’s played on Tour for a decade and a half; he knows these moments are too precious to waste. As for that big-time Ryder Cup question? He’s finally ready to think about that, too. A win “definitely changes things,” he told Live From.

There’s a long way to go. When Bradley won this very event two years ago he moved to No. 7 in the Ryder Cup standings and seemed like a shoo-in for the U.S. team that would go to Rome. Then again, it was this week last year that Bradley was named captain and it felt at that point like a longshot that he’d compete to play at Bethpage. Now? He’s up to No. 7 in the world, the best ranking of his career.

On Saturday night, before he’d gotten across the line, Bradley said something particularly interesting: he’s walking his own path.

“I sort of have come to this epiphany sort of that no one has ever experienced what I’m going through right now. Arnold Palmer [was a playing captain] in 1962 I think it was, but for the most part captains are done playing or at the end of their career or playing the Champions Tour. So it’s pretty cool, I’m experiencing something that not a lot of people have.”

Crossing off a “new experience” and turning yourself into an American golf legend in the process? That’s golf stuff I like.

WINNNERS

Who won the week?

Minjee Lee won the KPMG Women’s PGA at Fields Ranch East, fending off the field in firm, windy conditions with several late, clutch birdies to win her third career major.

“I definitely was nervous starting the day,” Lee admitted post-round, though after the first few holes, she hardly looked it. “I wasn’t really sure if it was the heat that was making my heart beat more. I looked calm, but not as calm as everybody thinks.”

The 29-year-old Aussie bagged $1.8 million from a newly elevated $12 million purse. What’s next?

“I really wanted to be in the Hall of Fame. That’s why I started golf. That’s why I wanted to be on the LPGA Tour, to, you know, win a bunch of tournaments and try to get into it,” she said. “Seeing Lydia do it, I think I would really like to get there. We’ll see how we go after this week.”

Keegan Bradley won the Travelers Championship for the second time; it’s also his fourth win in the last three PGA Tour seasons. He moves to No. 7 in the world, No. 8 in the FedEx Cup and No. 9 in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings.

Miguel Angel Jimenez, Bradley’s former sparring partner, won the Kaulig Companies Championship at Firestone in Akron, Ohio. The victory was the 61-year-old’s fourth of the season and the 17th of his Champions tour career.

And Myles Creighton had one of the more outrageous golf weeks I can remember hearing, like, ever. Creighton, a Korn Ferry Tour pro, opened his Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Wichita Open with a Thursday 68 before things got really weird.

On Friday he was four shots outside the cut line with eight holes to play. He birdied No. 11 and made a hole-in-one at No. 12. After a pedestrian par at No. 12 he birdied No. 14 — and then holed out at No. 15 for another eagle. Suddenly he was safely inside the cut line and bogeyed 18 for another 68.

Saturday he didn’t make any eagles — but he did make a dozen birdies, including a chip-in on No. 18, to enter rarified golfing air by shooting 59.

Sunday he shot 68 for the third time this week, which was good enough to win by one — his first Korn Ferry Tour victory and his first top 10 this season. He’s up to No. 16 on the tour’s order of merit, which means he went from outside the cut line to in the hunt for a PGA Tour card in less than three days.

NOT WINNERS

But agonizingly close…

If you didn’t watch Tommy Fleetwood‘s agonizing defeat, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you. Even as a massive Keegan supporter I felt legitimately ill watching Fleetwood’s final bogey, which didn’t come from any single mistake but instead three half-mistakes — he switched clubs on his approach and left that 50 feet short, shorted his approach putt to just outside Bradley’s mark and then missed his par try well right of the hole. I’ve been deep in the film trying to figure out if that par putt swerved because it hit something, but I can’t tell if it would have missed anyway…

After sleeping on it, though, I have this takeaway — as heartbreaking and uninspiring as his finish felt, I still feel better about Tommy’s chances going forward. There’s clearly nothing wrong with his game, and post-round he said exactly what he should have.

Russell Henley’s T2 finish included the golf gods taking one away (his self-called penalty on No. 8 on Friday) and the golf gods giving back (his chip-in on the 72nd hole to post 14 under par, which tied the clubhouse lead until Bradley’s birdie ended things).

“Yeah, electric crowd. Pretty awesome to finish like that,” Henley said.

Jason Day and Harris English shared T4, while Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy finished T6.

“Positive vibes going into a couple-week break here and get ready for Scotland and The Open Championship,” McIlroy said.

“Obviously I was looking for a little bit more, but overall not a bad week,” Scheffler said. “If I have a different day yesterday I think it’s a different story, but can’t be perfect every day, just trying to do my best.”

And after a lackluster start to his week, last week’s U.S. Open champ J.J. Spaun shot Sunday’s low round, 63, to climb from T46 to finish T14.

At the KPMG Women’s PGA, American Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen of Thailand finished T2 as the only other players to finish under par behind Lee. Jeeno Thitikul, the World No. 2, held the 18- and 36-hole lead but shot 76-75 on the weekend to finish T4 as her hunt for a first major continues. Hye-Jin Choi finished T6, her fourth consecutive LPGA top-six; she’s also finished top 10 at the year’s first three majors. Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson started Sunday in the penultimate group but fell to T19 and T12, respectively; Lydia Ko and Charley Hull were also in that group at T12. There have now been 16 different winners in 16 LPGA events this year.

SHORT HITTERS

5 notable WDs.

I’m not sure the typical WD rate for a PGA Tour event, but five players from a 72-player field seems significant.

1. Jordan Spieth withdrew midway through his first round with a neck injury; he was “incredibly frustrated” because he’d felt like his game was set up for a big week — and said it was the first time he’d withdrawn from a tournament at any level.

2. Si Woo Kim pulled out with a back injury midway through his second round; he’d shot 71 on Thursday and was seven over through 12 on Friday before calling it quits.

3. Eric Cole was six under par after Saturday’s third round which had him T14 and in line for valuable FedEx Cup points (he entered the week at No. 60 in the standings) but he withdrew due to “illness” prior to Sunday’s round. A tweet from his mother Laura Baugh suggested that he’d been to the ER.

That lines up with reports from illness on the ground at last week’s U.S. Open as well as the Travelers; Bradley, like J.J. Spaun last week, said he had a kid up sick for much of Saturday night.

4. Matti Schmid was in last place to begin Sunday’s final round, and because they played in threesomes off split tees he was actually playing as a single in the final time of the day. He played four holes, making double bogey on his fourth, before he withdrew with illness.

5. Viktor Hovland‘s WD strikes me as particularly troubling. He, too, entered Sunday’s final round in T14, fresh off a Saturday 63. Here’s how he described what happened next:

“I warmed up on the range, felt great. I was just going to hit a last couple drivers before I was going to go to the first tee, and hit one shot and then felt a little bit in my neck, but it felt fine, didn’t feel hardly anything at all, just felt like something was maybe brewing.

“Then the next shot that I hit with a driver it just felt like, yeah, it just cracked. I don’t know exactly what happened, but there’s something that happened and just couldn’t move.”

Hovland had someone look at it but at this point it was just a few minutes before he was due on the first tee.

“Tried to play, but just wasn’t doable,” he said. “I could hardly just stand over the ball and move my neck. Couldn’t really do anything.”

Oddly enough his round started in prototypical fashion: 308-yard drive down the middle, wedge to 20 feet, two-putt par. But his bogey at No. 2 included a chunked wedge shot; after hitting his tee shot at No. 3, he headed in.

Between Hovland and Cole it was the first time that two players inside the top 25 had both WD’d from the final round of a Tour event in more than 30 years.

RYDER CUP WATCH

Captain Keegan ain’t the only one on the move.

Bradley was the most significant mover in this week’s Ryder Cup rankings, of course — he jumped from No. 17 to No. 9. (It is an oddity of the ranking that he’s No. 7 in the world but only No. 9 on the points list). At 7,845 points, Bradley is still further from Justin Thomas, who occupies the final auto-qualifying spot at No. 6 with 9,998 points, than he is from Brian Harman, who sits in the No. 12 spot with 6,521 points. In other words, there’s a lot of golf left. But there’s no question who’s trending in the right direction and who’d make an obvious fit for a rowdy golf course atmosphere in the Northeast this fall.

Henley got an important boost from No. 7 to No. 4, too. Spaun and Thomas picked up points and remained inside the top six. And English leapt Mav McNealy and remains No. 10.

On the European side, Fleetwood went from No. 7 to No. 2. Harry Hall also went from No. 29 to No. 24 — worth monitoring if he gets hot this summer.

TEAM USA RYDER CUP RANKINGS

1. Scheffler 2. Schauffele 3. Spaun 4. Henley 5. DeChambeau 6. Thomas 7. Morikawa 8. Griffin 9. Bradley 10. English 11. McNealy 12. Harman 13. Novak 14. Cantlay 15. Burns

TEAM EUROPE RYDER CUP RANKINGS

1. McIlroy 2. Fleetwood 3. Hatton 4. MacIntyre 5. Lowry 6. Straka 7. R. Hojgaard 8. Aberg 9. Rose 10. Hovland 11. Detry 12. Wallace 13. Norgaard 14. Rai 15. Neergaard-Petersen

Complete standings here.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

Bradley on short putts.

One reporter noted that Bradley had looked at the hole on his final six-footer; he confirmed that to be the case.

“Six feet’s about my cutoff. I’ve been doing it for years,” Bradley said. “You know, I talked to some players, like, basketball players. [Michael Jordan] would say you never look at the ball when you shoot a free throw. You look at the rim. So I started doing it. I started to putt a lot better doing it. I actually extended how far out I do it this year, so I probably wouldn’t have looked at the hole last year from that distance. But I’ve been doing that for, you know, five, six years, at least.”

ONE BIG QUESTION

What’s Brian Rolapp’s handicap?

New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp appeared at the Travelers alongside current commissioner Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods, as well as members of SSG. And by citing his golf credentials (worked at a snack shack as a kid, plays a few times a year with his kids, refuses to disclose his handicap) he established himself as an outsider, someone with a fresh perspective on [gestures vaguely] all of this. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; in his Week 1 remarks he already made it clear that he won’t let tradition get in the way for tradition’s sake. His handicap, of course, is irrelevant. The real question is something like this: what does he see that he can change for the better?

ONE THING TO WATCH

If you’ve made it this far you need a cold brew or a cold beer and a 20-minute YouTube video starring Michael Greller and Chambers Bay. Good news:

(Editor’s note: If you already watched this Greller feature last week, feel free to refresh yourself on that Keegan-Miguel Angel beef)

NEWS FROM SEATTLE

Monday Finish HQ.

I had a broken sensor on my car, which means I’m planning a lengthy walk to pick it up from the shop this afternoon; it’s so nice out that I’m quite looking forward to that. Happy summer, my good people. I hope your drivers fly straight and sensors function properly.

We’ll see you next week.

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.