So, this is the great American golfing hope, the one who would break the foreign stranglehold on the majors and make us all forget that Tiger Woods has left the arena?
A player who is only the second most famous golfer in his own family – behind his aunt?
One who played in that college football factory of St. John’s?
A callow PGA Tour rookie who before this week had played in exactly as many of golf’s majors as Charles Barkley?
No one saw Keegan Bradley coming. Not this year. Not this week at the PGA Championship. And not as late as about 6 p.m. Sunday when the 25-year-old was playing the oversized par-3 15th at the Atlanta Athletic Club like he was wearing a blindfold.
After his triple bogey there dropped him five shots off the lead of Jason Dufner, Bradley might well have stepped back into the shadows whence he came.
Instead, he was overtaken by a spasm of inspired shot-making: birdies on two of his last three holes. One more at the start of his three-hole playoff against Dufner. Then hold on tight to the Wanamaker Trophy, lest someone in charge suddenly realize this was Keegan Freakin’ Bradley standing there with the goods and order an immediate restraining order.
“This seems like a dream. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up in five minutes and it’s not going to be real,” Bradley said.
It’s real, alright. Bradley became the first American to win a major since Phil Mickelson at the Masters in 2010, breaking a six-tournament streak of overseas celebration.
He claimed a major in his first-ever appearance in one of these big clam bakes, becoming the first such virgin champion since Ben Curtis (2003 British Open).
In an era of new faces – the last seven major champions now have been first-timers – Bradley may be the most obscure.
“Ever since I was 10 years old I have kind of flown under the radar,” he said.
He was born in Vermont, playing golf in the summer and skiing in the winter. And he was raised in Hopkinton, Mass., a state whose most noted major champion was Francis Ouimet, your 1913 U.S. Open winner. (Ouimet, too, was famous for beating back the foreign invaders, upsetting Brit Harry Vardon in that long ago Open).
Bradley’s template was his aunt, LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley. “I always wanted to be like her,” he said, proving that inspiration knows no gender.
The whole American victory thing was pretty much in hand by late in going Sunday. The only question was which model of American would take the day.
It would either be the rather rumpled Auburn man who emotes about as much as a coma patient – Dufner.
Or the tall, lean Yankee who try as he might to be a stoic couldn’t help but go a little wild on the greens Sunday – Bradley.
The tournament appeared to be in Dufner’s back pocket when Bradley chipped from the bunker into the water on No. 15 on his way to a triple bogey 6. That all played out in front of Dufner. As he watched from the 15 tee box, his lead over Bradley swelled to five strokes.
Bradley later explained his mindset: “The course is so tough that no lead is safe. I kept trying to tell myself that.”
He is a prophet. Because the weirdest thing happened. Dufner had absolutely mastered the AAC’s treacherous closing four holes, playing them in 3 under the first three days. He had no bogeys over that span, the only player in the field to survive that stretch without one.
He promptly bogeyed Nos. 15, 16 and 17.
And ahead of him, Bradley birdied 16 and, most improbably, snaked in a 35-foot birdie putt on No. 17.
They stood tied at 8 under through 72 holes, neither one entirely certain how he got there. No time for shock. The two were ushered to the 16th hole and ordered to commence a three-hole playoff.
Dufner hit his approach to the par-4 16 stiff, within 6 feet. But then Bradley hit his stiffer, to 4 feet. Bradley made his putt, Dufner missed his and the rout was on. Dufner three-putted the 17th to give Bradley an insurmountable two-shot lead going to the final playoff hole.
“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,” Dufner said. “But I got a feeling that I’m going to have some chances to win some majors.”
Don’t let the obscurity of the players involved get in the way of the fascination of what went on Sunday.
If you replaced the names of Bradley and Dufner with Woods and Mickelson, the sway of this tournament with its surrendered lead on one hand and its closing brilliance on the other would make for indisputably great theater.
Wherever Bradley may go from here, whether he becomes a lasting presence in American golf, that can’t be known.
This much he did know Sunday: “It’s pretty remarkable the way I played. I’m pretty proud of the way I played.”
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