The post Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott ‘draft’ off one another in sizzling BMW start appeared first on Golf.

The post Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott ‘draft’ off one another in sizzling BMW start appeared first on Golf.

WILMINGTON, Del. — During Thursday’s opening round of the BMW Championship, it was hard to tell what was at stake if you watched the pairing of Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott.

Tension? Glares? Breaches of etiquette? Not that we could detect.

Sure, it may have helped that the pair, who both entered the week well outside the top-30 in the FedEx Cup standings and needed to make a move to get to next week’s Tour Championship, shot a better-ball 10-under 61, but it was clear they enjoyed playing with one other.

“It was really a fun day today playing with Adam,” Bradley said after his seven-under 64 to hold the early lead in the first round. “It’s always great playing with Adam, but we both were playing really well, hitting good shots, making putts.”

Both players were smiling and laughing coming down the 9th fairway of Wilmington Country Club’s South Course. Bradley’s second shot on the nearly 500-yard par-4 drew in toward the flag before rolling down a slope and settling 38 feet away. He drilled the putt, his sixth birdie of the day for a six-under 29 on his outward nine.

News

Not to be outdone, Scott, who’s second shot finished on the proper level of the green, about 16 feet above the hole, got his ball to drip over the edge of the cup to match Bradley. It was one of five holes the pairing both birdied.

“I think I was drafting off [Bradley],” Scott said after his six-under 65, which has him just one behind Bradley and one ahead of three players at five under: Harold Varner III, Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. “He shot six-under the front and was running. Sometimes it’s good to see that and you can draft off each other, but also just to know that it’s really out there.

“I was really just trying to follow his lead.”

Scott followed the lead of the 2018 BMW Championship winner from Aronimink, just 18 miles from Wilmington, and even beat him on the back nine. He posted three inward birdies to Bradley’s two.

Both players need good performances this week to move on in the FedEx Cup Playoffs:Bradley can finish no worse than 28th and Scott 23rd to advance to East Lake and the Tour Championship next week.

“I never look to see what I have to do because whether I play in this tournament or Sony or any tournament, I always want to do the best I can, whether it’s 35th instead of 36th or first, whatever it is,” Bradley said. “I never feel like that helps me, I feel like it hurts me actually. But this is a good start, obviously.”

The pair goes off in Friday’s second round at 1:05 p.m..

The post Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott ‘draft’ off one another in sizzling BMW start appeared first on Golf.

The post Did a Keegan Bradley disagreement with his caddie cost him? appeared first on Golf.

The post Did a Keegan Bradley disagreement with his caddie cost him? appeared first on Golf.

They agreed on the approach. 

“I just don’t think there’s any — you don’t get anything to laying up,” Scott Vail said to his player.   

“No, it’s a hard shot,” Keegan Bradley said to his caddie.  

They agreed on the club. 

“Not 4,” Vail said. “It’s coming up dead. Like, I think it’s a good 3.” 

“I do too,” Bradley said.

They then disagreed. And Bradley’s dissent, at least according to two former players-turned analysts, figured heavily into determining a Wells Fargo Championship winner. Bradley and Max Homa started the par-4 11th at TPC Potomac with Homa up a shot. They walked to the 12th with Homa up three, and he eventually won by two. 

On the shot in question, both Bradley and Homa were in trouble. Each had over 200 yards to the flag on their second shots, with a penalty area short of the green. Each had a waterlogged lie below them. On Bradley’s ball, the player and caddie conversation, picked up by CBS microphones, eventually turned to the target. Vail wanted Bradley to play left of the trouble, toward a greenside bunker.  

“I mean, plus at that bunker, like the right edge of it,” Vail said.  

“Yeah, I’m just going to go a little to the right of it,” Bradley said.  

“OK.” 

News

“The spot that he was in on 11 was a terrible lie. … Not great footing. You could hear it squishing around right there,” analyst and former player Brandel Chamblee said on Golf Channel’s Golf Central show. “Way left of that green is fine. The worse you’re going to make is bogey. To hear him say to his caddie, who had sort of implored him to miss it in that bunker, I’m going to go a little right of that, you could hear it, you could hear it in the voice. He’s like, oh, OK. 

“Like, to me, that’s caddie-speak for — it almost sounded like Jon Rahm’s caddie a few years ago trying to talk him out of that crazy shot at the Players Championship, when he was trying to snap it around the tree. It almost sounded like that. Well, in each case, the caddies proved to be correct. Certainly was in Jon Rahm’s case. Certainly was in this case.”

By now, you can probably guess what happened, but we’ll say it anyway: Bradley went right of his right, and into the penalty area. From there, he took a drop, pitched on and two-putted for a double-bogey six. 

“That’s a bad shot there,” Ian Baker-Finch said on the CBS broadcast. 

“Well, his caddie said left, and he said I’ll go a bit more right,” analyst Nick Faldo said. “And that wasn’t the time. That was brutally difficult.”

Homa hit next. And hit almost exactly toward Vail’s line, the ball landing in the bunker. From there, Homa got up and down for a four. 

“From 217 yards, you could almost hear the anxiety, or maybe even the disappointment from Keegan’s caddie’s voice when he said, OK, I wouldn’t go right of it,” Chamblee said on Golf Central. “He was trying to sort of push him into a real conservative play over the left side of that green there and let him do his work. And instead he found the penalty area and gave Max Homa an opening. 

“Max Homa, from the right rough, maybe not as bad a lie, but from a similar yardage, hit it exactly where Keegan Bradley’s caddie was trying to sort of coach him into, that left bunker. Pretty good spot. Likely not make worse than bogey from that left bunker. And again, that’s not a bad thing on the most difficult hole on the golf course. But Max Homa didn’t make bogey. Made about a 9-footer there for a clutch par and a two-shot swing.” 

The post Did a Keegan Bradley disagreement with his caddie cost him? appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Top 3 shot I’ve seen in my life’: Put this Keegan Bradley stinger-slice in the Hall of Fame appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Top 3 shot I’ve seen in my life’: Put this Keegan Bradley stinger-slice in the Hall of Fame appeared first on Golf.

John Wood has caddied in Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups. He’s been to the finals of the WGC-Match Play with three different players. But on Thursday at Austin Country Club he saw the best match-play shot of his life.

“Justin, I’m sure that shot looked very cool on TV,” Wood said on the Golf Channel broadcast. “I was standing about 30 yards right behind him and that is top three shots I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The shot in question came from the Srixon iron of Keegan Bradley, who was 1 down to Adam Scott playing the 18th hole. He’d been down all round, including 3 down with four holes to play. But he’d battled back with wins at 15 and 16 and a lengthy par save at 17 to keep him in the match. But at 18 he blew a giant block-slice so far right off the tee that his ball settled directly behind a row of trees, more than 100 yards behind Scott.

In a stroke-play situation, there’s no question Bradley would have punched out. If he’d been tied or even 1 up, he’d have punched out, too. But desperate times call for desperate lines, and Bradley knew he needed something special. He pulled an iron from his bag, opened his stance, picked a window and swung away.

You can see in the video below what happened next. The ball snuck through Bradley’s intended gap, stayed in the air and bent from left to right, catching the slope at the left edge of the green and riding the ridge down to the hole, leaving less than four feet for a ridiculous birdie.

Looking on, Wood couldn’t believe it.

“Boy, oh boy,” he said, nearly lost for words. “I didn’t honestly think he could get it within 20 yards of the green, much less that close to the hole.”

The rest of the broadcast team pushed him for comparisons. What other match-play heroics had he seen that would measure up?

“After that one, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better shot in match play than that,” he said.

Nobody asked what I thought, but I’ll tell you anyway: I thought it was incredible. I thought it was spectacular. I saw the window. You saw the window. Whenever we’re in the woods, we see the window. But hitting that window with the perfect marriage of trajectory, velocity and left-to-right cut to produce that thing of beauty? Hang it in the Louvre. Send a screenshot to the glass castle in Ponte Vedra Beach. This thing belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of obscure golf shots.

To the next part, then. We saw what the shot did. What did it mean? Everything and nothing. Let’s start with the nothing.

Unfortunately, even though the subsequent birdie saved Bradley’s match result, it didn’t preserve his tournament hopes. Those had been dashed a short while earlier when Justin Rose had defeated Jordan Spieth 3 and 2, ensuring that either Spieth or Rose will exceed Bradley’s point total after their match on Friday. Because Bradley had lost his opening match to Spieth on No. 18, he’d needed an outright victory against Scott. No dice.

But in another important way the shot did matter, at least a little bit. For one thing, Bradley needs all the mojo he can get in this event. He won his first match (in 2012 against Geoff Ogilvy) and either tied or lost the 13 since, losing nine and tying four. This still wasn’t a win — make that nine losses and five ties since his last victory — but it was better than nothing.

It was also a bright spot for Bradley, who gained notoriety as a match-play warrior as a Ryder Cupper early in his career but has made fewer highlight reels in the years that have elapsed since. Before the shot, Bradley’s most notable moment of the week was a viral video of his painstaking putting process, which didn’t engender much goodwill from the 1.5 million viewers who’d watched it on Twitter.

If nothing else, this was a chance to replace that image in viewers’ minds with something far more heroic. It was a moral victory, a mojo victory, a viral victory. That moment of determined execution was worth something. Nobody stares a golf ball down like Keegan Bradley, after all.

“He has that look about him at times,“ David Feherty said on the broadcast. “If he was a dog, he’d chase your car. And catch it.”

What’s next? A meaningless match with Justin Rose on Friday. Maybe he’ll get his first win in Austin in a decade. Maybe he won’t. Either way he’ll carry the title forward of the best match-play shot John Wood has ever seen. Plus my approval. Whatever that’s worth.

The post ‘Top 3 shot I’ve seen in my life’: Put this Keegan Bradley stinger-slice in the Hall of Fame appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘They seem to like to screw everything up’: Pro rips rulesmakers after marking gaffe appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘They seem to like to screw everything up’: Pro rips rulesmakers after marking gaffe appeared first on Golf.

Keegan Bradley, in the moment, said it angered him. Two days later, he sounded more frustrated. 

Hit with a two-stroke penalty after confusion over a rule during Saturday’s second round at the Players Championship, Bradley lashed out at officials on Monday as the infraction became magnified during the final round. After his 12th hole at TPC Sawgrass, Bradley was tied for the lead, before finishing four back.

“Well, first off, I think the USGA needs to smarten up and change that rule,” Bradley said afterward. “It’s so silly. They try to make the rules easier, and they never get it right.”

News

At issue was how Bradley proceeded after he put his mark down on the 16th green, when wind moved his ball. Bradley believed he was to play from where his mark was. But, because he hadn’t picked up his ball before it was blown, he should have played from the new spot, according to Rule 13.1d (2).  

On the 2nd hole (Bradley started on the back nine), rules official Gary Young told Bradley of the infraction, and his par 5 became a double-bogey 7. 

“I put the coin down, and as I’m going to grab it, a huge gust of wind, and it went,” Bradley said when a reporter asked for clarification on Monday. “The rule actually states you have to pick the ball up, so the coin means nothing for whatever reason that no one — I’d like to hear the USGA’s explanation for that. They seem to like to screw everything up.

“But I’ll know that going forward, and I know a lot of the guys I spoke to inside, that’ll help them hopefully.”

After he was tied for the lead after 12 on Monday, Bradley never pulled ahead outright. He bogeyed 17 and double-bogeyed 18 to finish 5th.  

Rules

“I tried to tell myself on Friday — they told me on the 2nd hole, which was my 11th and blowing 30 miles an hour,” Bradley said. “I was three under at the time or two, I forget, and it got me so pissed off that it refocused me. And I tried to tell myself that maybe — I think I played the rest of the holes one under. Maybe I don’t play those holes one under because it was so difficult, the conditions. I tried to tell myself that maybe it’s going to make me shoot a lower score in the end. Who knows. Who knows. Can’t tell at this point.

“It was a fluke thing. I was saying a million things had to happen all at once for this to happen. It was perfect timing, it was the gust — if I take one second longer or one second shorter, this never happens. I’ve spoken to a bunch of the guys. Not one player knows this rule. We all thought common sense says you put your coin down, that’s where your ball is. I didn’t want to break the rules by moving my coin. I was trying to do the right thing.

“This day and age, if you do something like that, it’s going to be seen. Thank God they did, or I could have been DQed.”

The post ‘They seem to like to screw everything up’: Pro rips rulesmakers after marking gaffe appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘That was tough news’: Rules gaffe stuns major champion at Players appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘That was tough news’: Rules gaffe stuns major champion at Players appeared first on Golf.

The coin was not enough. 

In a rarely called rules violation, Keegan Bradley was stung with a two-shot penalty on Saturday during his second round at the Players Championship after he marked his ball on the 16th green at TPC Sawgrass, the ball moved and Bradley played it from where he had marked it, rather than where the ball moved to. Bradley’s par five was changed to a double-bogey seven, and he finished with a one-under 71. 

Afterward, Bradley said he and his playing partners, Andrew Putnam and Cameron Young, all believed they were in the right at the moment. 

“Well, apparently the rule is — I thought as long as everyone in my group … and I guarantee most of the entire field thought the USGA changed the rule to simplify it — put your coin down, that’s where your ball is,” said Bradley, the 2011 PGA Championship winner. “So put my coin down, the ball moved, a huge gust of wind came up. 

News

“I looked at the guys in my group, and we all said, yep, the coin was down first, all good. Didn’t think about it again until Gary [rules official Gary Young] came up and spoke to me on 2, and proud of the way I handled that because that was tough news, especially with some tough holes in front of me.”

In play was rule 13.1d (2), which states: “If natural forces cause a player’s ball on the putting green to move, where the player must play from next depends on whether the ball had already been lifted and replaced on its original spot.” If the ball was not already lifted and replaced, “the ball must be played from its new spot.” (For conversation sake, if the ball had been already lifted and replaced, “the ball must be replaced on its original spot (which if not known must be estimated), even though it was moved by natural forces and not by the player, the opponent or an outside influence.”)

“Unfortunately when Keegan was on the putting green at No. 16 he went to mark his golf ball and And his ball was moved by natural forces,” rules official Mark Dusbabek said further on the NBC broadcast. “You’re supposed to play it from its new position. He had not lifted the ball. You have to mark it and lift the ball, take it out of play and put it back. But he had went and picked up his ball after he had marked it but had not lifted his ball prior to doing that, so he was supposed to play it from its new position.”

The post ‘That was tough news’: Rules gaffe stuns major champion at Players appeared first on Golf.

The post Do Ryder Cup captains matter? This Phil Mickelson story suggests they do appeared first on Golf.

The post Do Ryder Cup captains matter? This Phil Mickelson story suggests they do appeared first on Golf.

The significance, or lack thereof, of Ryder Cup captains is one of golf’s great debates. Heck, entire books have been written on the topic. (If you’re keen, we point you to The Captain Myth: The Ryder Cup and Sport’s Great Leadership Delusion, by Richard Gillis.) No one can argue that the captains and their lieutenants don’t lack for duties — they pick players and shirt styles, set pairings and menus — but less clear is what actual impact they have on the result of the matches.

Yes, captains can help get their players get in the right frame of mind to play high-pressure golf in front of tens of thousands of roaring fans, but ultimately it’s up to the players to execute.

News

Earlier this week Phil Mickelson was asked to muse on the role of Ryder Cup vice-captain, a position he’ll assume for the first time at Whistling Straits next week. He responded with a story about Fred Couples, who is also serving on the 2021 squad as a vice-captain under Steve Stricker.    

“I remember on the 18th hole at Memorial, the Presidents Cup in 2013, coming down the last match, we’re tied,” Mickelson said, referring to his and Keegan Bradley’s Saturday foursomes match against Jason Day and Graham DeLaet. “[Keegan] is up ahead of me walking with Captain Couples and I hit one in there about 12 feet.

“Keegan’s nervous and Fred puts his arm around him and says, ‘Isn’t this the best? Like, this is the best moment, this is what we’re wanting to be, the position we’re wanting to be in. Isn’t this fun?’

“Keegan, you could see him just kind of breathe again, knocks that putt in. Graham DeLaet holed a chip shot right in front of him, Keegan knocks it right on top of him for a tie. There’s been a lot of great captains, but that’s an example of one thing where a captain can make a difference on a player’s emotional state.”

News

The U.S. went on to win that session, 3.5 to 1.5, and cruised to victory in the overall event, 18.5 to 15.5.

As for Mickelson’s role next week? Knowing Phil, you have to figure he’ll be active, from the Ping-Pong table to pep talks in decisive moments. On Sunday and Monday, he joined most of the U.S. squad in Kohler, Wisc., so the players could get familiar with the course.

“It’s fun to hang with the guys and to have that time together, but also to be able to now prepare for a week knowing what to expect, who you’re going to play with, golf balls, if you might change,” he said. “You have a week to get ready.”

And then it’s all up the players … and the captains?

The post Do Ryder Cup captains matter? This Phil Mickelson story suggests they do appeared first on Golf.

The post Keegan Bradley’s keys to conquering Kiawah this week appeared first on Golf.

The post Keegan Bradley’s keys to conquering Kiawah this week appeared first on Golf.

Keegan Bradley explains why his driver is the most important club for him this week at the 2021 PGA Championship.

The post Keegan Bradley’s keys to conquering Kiawah this week appeared first on Golf.

The post Keegan Bradley Q and A: On the 10-year anniversary of his PGA triumph and why he’s hungry for more appeared first on Golf.

The post Keegan Bradley Q and A: On the 10-year anniversary of his PGA triumph and why he’s hungry for more appeared first on Golf.

Ten years ago, Keegan Bradley was a wide-eyed rookie on the PGA Tour, but success came at a rapid pace for the 25 year old. After just 15 career starts, Bradley found the winner’s circle at the 2011 HP Byron Nelson Championship. Two and a half months later, Bradley arrived at the Atlantic Athletic Club for his first major, the 2011 PGA Championship. At week’s end — after one of the most stunning finishes in PGA Championship history — Bradley was a major champ.

Now 35, and as the Tour veteran gets ready to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his lone major title, Ryan Asselta caught up with Bradley as he prepares for the PGA at Kiawah Island. The four-time PGA Tour winner opened up about the nerves he felt that Sunday in 2011, how his life instantly changed, and how 10 years later the hunger to win another major is still very strong.

GOLF.com: It’s been 10 years since your PGA Championship victory at Atlanta Athletic Club. Does it feel like it’s been a decade since that moment for you?

Keegan Bradley: It really doesn’t. It seems like it just happened yesterday, but a lot’s changed in my life over the past 10 years. In some ways, it seems like it was yesterday and then in some ways, it seems like it was another lifetime ago. I really can’t believe it’s been 10 years but I’m thankful to be celebrating that anniversary.

Lifestyle

What do you remember most about that week back in 2011?

It was the first major I had ever played in so I was in complete awe. There was a lot of pride in being able to say I was playing in a major. I was a rookie on Tour and everything was such a whirlwind in my life at that point. I got off to a really bad start. I was three over through four and from there on out I played some of the best golf in my life. I just remember being really calm throughout the whole week. Every tournament was a major for me at that time. It was my rookie year and every single time I teed it up was a major.

As a rookie you had played in some PGA Tour events, but going to your first major championship, was there a feeling that this was a little different than anything you’d played in before?

Yes, definitely. When you register at the PGA the Wanamaker Trophy is sitting right on the table as you sign in. It’s a very stunning trophy. I think it’s one of the best in all of sports, to be honest. It’s big and it’s very recognizable. When I walked into that room and saw it, I was like, Wow, this is unbelievable that I’ve gotten to this point in my career. Little did I know, four or five days later, I was going to be holding that trophy and winning the tournament.

The finish in 2011 was unbelievable. With four holes to play you found the water and made triple bogey on the 15th hole. You were five strokes back of the lead with only three holes to play. Did you think your chances went with your ball into the water that day?

Yeah, probably. I wasn’t doing a ton of leaderboard watching at that stage of my career, so I still had my head down. I knew a second or a fifth or even an eighth-place finish was a big deal. It was a lot of money and was a lot of FedEx Cup and World Ranking points. I was still really concerned about keeping my head down and playing those last three holes, which are maybe the hardest holes on the course.

How did you reset yourself after that triple bogey?

There’s like a 100-yard walk from the 15th green to the 16th tee and I just kept telling myself, Let’s just hit the best shot we can here on the 16th tee. And I got to that tee and I hit the most unbelievable drive. When people ask me the best shot I’ve ever hit in my life, it’s kind of a boring answer. But it was that 16th tee shot on Sunday at the PGA. I absolutely hammered it about 30 yards past where I’d been hitting it that week. I ended up making birdie there. And I always look back on that shot and that moment as probably the most important moment of my career.

You birdie 16, and then roll in a 35-footer for birdie on 17. Meanwhile Jason Dufner was stumbling down the stretch. You were tied with Dufner, while he was playing the 18th hole.

For a brief moment, I was in the scoring tent and Duf and I were tied. The 18th hole is a brutal hole and it crossed my mind — Holy cow, I could win this right here. Eighteen was a par-5 converted into a par-4 so a bogey was very likely considering how hard the hole was playing. I remember thinking, like, Wow, I could literally win this right now. I had to catch myself because Duf hit a great shot and hit the green and made par and we went to a playoff.

Here you are, a PGA Tour rookie playing in his first major, and now you are heading to a three-hole playoff. Were you nervous?

I remember being so calm and confident. I didn’t get really nervous until we were on the 18th green, which was the final hole of the playoff. I was two up at the time and I had about 20 feet left for birdie and Duf had about 20 feet just outside of me, right on my line. I remember thinking that if he missed his putt I’ve won. There was no way I can’t win. All he can do is make it and that’s going to put some stress in my life. And sure enough, he made it. That was when I got really nervous. Like how you read about guys getting nervous in majors. I was nervous. It meant I had to two-putt to win. I putted it up there pretty close. I then reset and tapped it in. To this day, I have a hard time watching that last hole because I still have that nervous feeling that comes back.

You were 25 at the time. How much did your life change when you became a major champion?

I remember I flew home on a private jet, which I had never been on. After the media tour I was on the plane and it was the first time I had been by myself in like a week. It was just me and the Wanamaker Trophy. It was just such a stunning moment in my life. The next day, I went to dinner with all my buddies at a local sushi place in Jupiter called Too Bizaare. I walked in and I could tell that people knew who I was. People were coming up to me, which had never happened to me in my life. It was pretty shocking, but pretty fun too.

News

How has your life changed since 2011?

I have two kids now and I’m married. My life is a lot different but it’s a lot better. I get to come to the PGA Championship every year for the rest of my life and go to the Champion’s Dinner, to walk around knowing that I’ve won the tournament. I usually never touch a trophy that I haven’t won. So before the PGA every year I always go touch the Wanamaker. I always look for my name on the trophy and then Ben Hogan’s name, Tiger Woods. It’s pretty cool that I get to relive that every year.

At 35 years old, how hungry are you to win another major championship?

This year will be the first major that I’ve played, other than the Masters, which I’m returning to the course I previously played. I feel as ready as ever to do it again. I think when you win a major you kind of crave that feeling again. It’s so different than winning a regular tournament.

You finished 3rd at the PGA Championship at Kiawah back in 2012. What’s the key to success for you there?

I think in all of the majors, but especially at Kiawah, ball-striking is going to be a big key. Driving the ball, which is one of my best parts of my game, will be important. If it’s a little bit windy, that’s only going to help me. I love the course. I think it’s a fun major venue because it’s unique. It’s not a course that has hosted 20 majors so it’s one that we look forward to going to.

The post Keegan Bradley Q and A: On the 10-year anniversary of his PGA triumph and why he’s hungry for more appeared first on Golf.

The post The best shot Keegan Bradley ever hit appeared first on Golf.

The post The best shot Keegan Bradley ever hit appeared first on Golf.

On this week’s PGA Championship edition of Tour Stop, Keegan Bradley tells us why the best shot he ever hit was at the 2011 PGA Championship.

The post The best shot Keegan Bradley ever hit appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I just hit a terrible shot’: Keegan Bradley breaks down tournament-altering double bogey appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I just hit a terrible shot’: Keegan Bradley breaks down tournament-altering double bogey appeared first on Golf.

Keegan Bradley and Sam Burns were tied for the Valspar Championship lead with six holes to play, but the whole tournament changed after one costly swing on the 13th hole.

About an hour before Burns officially claimed a three-shot victory at Innisbrook — which was only three shots because he bogeyed the 18th — Bradley’s tee shot on 13 left him slumped at the waist in disbelief. The par-3 played at 182 yards on Sunday, and Bradley hit an 8-iron to a green with little depth that’s fronted by water. Splash.

“I just hit a terrible shot,” he said. “I hadn’t really hit a really bad shot all week and you just can’t hit it there, obviously, but you can’t hit it right of the flag. And I just came out of it a little bit, it got gobbled up by the wind, if it goes another yard it might have been in that bunker, but it was a bummer.”

Bradley parred the hole in each of the first two rounds and made bogey on Saturday. The 13th, with a scoring average of 3.246, played as the second-toughest hole of the week. Its last hurrah proved to be a critical moment, too. Burns made par after two-putting from 61 feet and his two-shot edge became three when he birdied the 14th.

“You never wish that upon anyone, you never wish to see someone hit it in the water,” Burns said. “And I was hoping Keegan would play his best. I wanted to see how I would hold up and see if I could beat him with my best against his best. Unfortunately for him he hit it in the water there and I really felt for him. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. So I think for me I was just trying to focus on two-putting that ball. I knew that was going to be a challenging hole, I knew where that pin was there’s just no way to really get that ball close. So we were just trying to make a 3 there and I was able to do that.”

Added Bradley, who shot 71 and finished solo 2nd: “I was in contention today obviously coming down the last nine holes. I’ve done pretty well in my career when I’ve had a chance and I just didn’t hit the shots that I needed to.”

The post ‘I just hit a terrible shot’: Keegan Bradley breaks down tournament-altering double bogey appeared first on Golf.