CROMWELL, Connecticut – New Englander Keegan Bradley, born in Vermont and reared in Hopkinton, Mass., looked at the annual Travelers Championship at the TPC River Highlands golf course as his only chance to play a home game.
For a veteran of the PGA Tour and its relentless travel schedule, Bradley actually welcomed his poor performance at the recent U.S. Open in Los Angeles for a chance to work with his golf coach, Darren May, for some down and dirty and much-needed instruction this past Monday through Wednesday while Bradley enjoyed some time with his immediate family who were easily able to cruise into this suburb of Hartford to re-unite as four with his wife, Jillian, and two young boys, Logan and Cooper.
What the Bradley’s couldn’t have anticipated was the golfer in the family shooting a scorching 62-63-64 to start his adventure and approach the final round of this elevated PGA Tour $top on top of the leaderboard, a stroke ahead of playing partner, Chez Reavie, and a full five strokes ahead of Patrick Cantlay and the pack of FedEx Cup[ point-seeking professionals.
“This was the first PGA Tour event I’d ever been to back when I was a kid,” said Bradley to a crowded press room of mostly Connecticut-based media, all woofing-down some Frank Pepe New Haven pizza as a treat from The Travelers. “I drove from Vermont and drove here to come and watch David Duval play.
“It’s an event, my first handful of years on Tour, I really struggled at because the pressure of wanting to play well for my family and the local community. It was too much. I had to learn how to do it,” he said.
“Other than the majors and those type of tournaments, this was always on the top of my list.”
Heading into the day, Bradley knew he’d need another low score to stay on top of the pack and earn a cool $3.6 million dollars for his weekend of work. His scoring pace was setting records for 54-hole play on the PGA Tour and the possibilities for Sunday were for the best four rounds in Tour history.
Birdies on three of the first nine holes and two of the first three holes on the “Back Nine” of the Tournament Players Club course, put Bradley at a torrid (-26) for the tournament and in full control of his own destiny.
Then came hole No. 13.
“On that backside, there is water everywhere so you can make a bogey in a second,” noted Bradley.
Bradley’s bogey six was only his second bogey of the four-day sojourn as Cantlay showed his capabilities to post a (-22), applying just enough pressure for the New England leaning crowd to tense up while the confidence in Bradley’s face, his body-language and gate noticeably stiffened as the humidity took the air temperature soaring, sucking the breeze right out of the landscape on hole No. 14.
Another bogey.
Then, a par-save on No. 15 led to his third bogey in four holes, dropping his score to (-23) while Cantlay was within reach. Bradley’s other competition finished their rounds, posting (-20 – for – 260s), safely three back for a golfer who then stared at No. 17 and No. 18, needing only to par (or better) the holes – which he had done all weekend.
Bradley’s tee shot on No. 17, he claimed in his post tournament interviews, was one of the best shots he could lay claim to.
“It was what was going to win or lose me the tournament,” he noted. “I remembered when I won the PGA (Championship), I made triple on 15 and then my tee shot on 16 was regular tee shot, but, again, I always used to say that was the best shot I’ve ever hit and not one that anyone would remember.
“That 17th hole, you have to take an aggressive line.”
“I just did an interview with (Golf Channel host) Brandel Chamblee and he said (the 17th) played as the second hardest hole on the course, or maybe the first (today). There were 44 balls in the water today.
“It was a stressful finish, but once I got that ball on the green on 17, I kind of could take a little bit of a deep breath,” he said. “What a great shot, one of the best I’ve ever hit in my life.”
A pair of fours brought Bradley in at (68 – 257) and (-23) for the Travelers tournament record, but not the 253 that would’ve been engraved in the record books. The win, however, earned Bradley a few welcome texts from some of the all-time greats, like basketball’s Michael Jordan, Howard Stern‘s “Baba Booey” and football’s Aaron Rodgers, “even though he’s a Jet now,” laughed Bradley.
“Winning a tournament with your family is the greatest feeling because they put up with a lot of nonsense,” Bradley said. “I would say because of my traveling, missing first days of school, or my wife being alone all the time when I’m on the road, so for them to be able to feel the excitement of this and be here and feel it,”
“I can’t put a price on that. It’s just the greatest feeling,” said the 2023 Travelers Champion.”