Backspin: Bradley avoids Sunday slide on final four
By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. -- It was late Saturday in the gloam and stifling heat enveloped Atlanta Athletic Club and Adam Scott had just come off the golf course after another fair but somewhat frustrating round.
"Yeah, you can make up six shots in the last four holes," Scott said with a wry smile.
But the Aussie wasn't referring to someone putting on the kind of charge that Charl Schwartzel did in the year's first major when he closed out his Masters win with four straight birdies. He was talking about someone going in the other direction.
In the case of Keegan Bradley, it was only four shots that he made up on his way to his first career major win in his first ever appearance in a major.
For 68 holes, the PGA Championship seemed to be stuck in the thick heat of the Atlanta summer. In the end, though, the final four holes played a pivotal role in determining the winner.
"They are tough holes," Jason Dufner said. "Everybody struggled on them."
Everybody except Dufner that is, until the final round anyway. He came into Sunday having played the last four at AAC in a collective 3 under. He left there having played them in 3 over with three straight bogeys on 15, 16 and 17.
Even Bradley didn't get through there unscathed. It looked like he'd blown his own chance when he chipped into the water and made triple bogey on the 15th hole.
"The course is so tough that no lead is safe," Bradley said. "And I kept trying to tell myself that because I knew that that was the case, especially if you got a big lead, you might get a little tight coming down the end."
That's exactly what happened to Dufner and so many others' whose scorecards were wrecked by AAC's final four.
So there you have it. The year's first major was all about who could make a Sunday charge while the last was decided by who could avoid a Sunday slide, and both were equally memorable for different reasons.
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THE BACK NINE: 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. "Ever since I was 10 years old, I've kind of flown under the radar," Keegan Bradley said. "I had what I thought was a pretty good college career. I never really got noticed. Same in junior golf and kind of the same out here." He's not under the radar anymore. Bradley went from a few thousand followers on Twitter last week to more than 25,000 by Monday morning.
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2. As good as Bradley was the last few holes Sunday, he might not have been in that position without Phil Mickelson, who has taken Bradley, among others, under his wing this year. You see it all the time in other sports where veteran players impart their wisdom on younger players, and that's what Mickelson did with Bradley. "Phil has been great to me," Bradley said. "He's just told me to stay more patient out there. The major thing I tried to do this week was under-react to everything whether it was a good thing or a terrible thing; I under-reacted to the triple and I overreacted a little when I made that putt on 17. If you watch Phil play, he gets excited but he never gets too down on himself, and that was the key."
3. Given the circumstances -- a blown four-shot lead with four holes to play -- Jason Dufner was more than amicable afterward, saying that while he was disappointed he didn't win, he was excited about a good result in a major. And yet I have a feeling that he would have reacted almost exactly the same had he won; that's just his personality. "I'm so new to this situation as far as trying to win majors. I probably don't appreciate it as much as I might soon," Dufner said. "Maybe looking back 10, 15 years from now I'll feel disappointment that I let this one get away if I never get another chance. But I've got a feeling that I'm going to have some chances to win some majors and some other golf tournaments."
4. Tiger Woods missing the cut at the PGA may not necessarily be a bad thing. Yes, he needs the tournament reps but he needs to put in the work with coach Sean Foley more -- something he hasn't been able to do for health reasons. Now that's no longer the case. "I can just go out there and hit as many golf balls as I want, putt for as long as I want, chip for as long as I want," Woods said. "These are things that over the course of years past I haven't been able to dedicate that much time to, so it feels good to be able to feel physically capable of doing that again. That's the only way I'm going to improve so I need to put in the legwork." When he comes back in November for the Australian Open, his performances from then on will tell us a lot more about where he's at than it has the last few months with all the starts and stops.
5. Another major, another occasion where Lee Westwood wasn't hoisting the trophy in the end. He didn't exactly play bad -- he shot a final-round 68 with just one bogey -- but he was never able to get much going after missing two early birdie putts from inside 6 feet in his first five holes. Will he ever win one of these? He has too much talent not to but it always seems to be wrong time, wrong place for one reason or another for Westwood, who now has six top-10s in majors over the last three years. In five of those, he's finished in the top 3.
6. If Rory McIlroy had to hit the shot from behind the tree root that nearly ended his tournament on the third hole over again, and without knowing the outcome, he said he probably would hit it. That's the impetuousness of youth. As for whether his caddie J.P. Fitzgerald should have talked him out of the shot, "Rory's his own man," his manager Stuart Cage told me. "He makes his own decisions." As for whether it was the right one or not, that's part of what separates great players from good ones, the willingness to take risks and hit shots others wouldn't.
7. The 18th hole at Atlanta Athletic Club drew an awful lot of reaction from players. Scott called it a "fiddly" finishing hole; Mickelson, tongue in cheek, called it a "great" hole after hitting 5-iron off the tee and 4-iron into the green Sunday. Most, though, said it was a great par-5. The only problem was it wasn't a par-5. It was a par-4. And here's why it drew so many reactions: Whether it played from 491 yards the way it did Thursday, or 471 yards on Sunday, it didn't change the approach there. Players still had basically 200-220 yards into the green from the landing area. Now, if it was say 570 yards that would have changed things a bit.
8. I've talked to several caddies and players about the importance and role of caddie in that relationship and the general consensus is that players feel a caddie is a lot more than a luggage carrier -- "If I thought my guy was carrying luggage, I wouldn't pay him nearly as much as I am," Luke Donald said -- while most caddies feel they're there to keep their player's head on straight and offer the occasional club selection or putt read. Whatever the case is, you can't tell me Steve Williams isn't having at least some impact on Adam Scott.
9. Gary Woodland tied for 12th for his best finish in a major in his still young career. Somehow I don't think that will be the last we see of Woodland on the big stage. He has all the tools to win a major championship.
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The Wyndham Championship is the last chance for anyone not inside the top 125 in the FedExCup standings to qualify for the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, which begin the following week. With that in mind, a number of big-name players are in Greensboro, including Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Paul Casey and Angel Cabrera. All are on the outside looking in and need a good week to get into the Playoffs. | Kodak Challenge | |
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