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| Mr. Lucky's Place |
Keegan Bradley is one lucky
golfer. An extremely lucky golfer. In fact, he is the Mr. Lucky of golf. At the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational played on the Firestone South course two weekends ago, we watched as Bradley drained a 15-foot par putt on the final hole Sunday
to lockup second place. That is, until Jim Furyk yanked his tee shot on the 18th
hole into the trees on the left side of the fairway. Furyk caught a huge break when his tee shot
bounced out of the trees and back into the fairway. But his 7-iron from the middle of the 18th
fairway went long. Furyk had to place
his left foot in the sand to play his third short and the delicate chip barely
cleared the bunker and settled into more thick grass. The chip for his fourth
shot stopped 5 feet short of the pin, and the bogey putt missed. So Bradley was the winner after Furyk made
double bogey from the middle of the 18th fairway.
Furyk
was quoted afterward as saying “ It (golf) is a cruel game. I've lost some
tournaments in some pretty poor fashions, but I don't think I've let one ever
slip nearly as bad as this one. This was my worst effort to finish off an
event." Really? What short memories we have. A mere 2 months ago at the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club when
Furyk reached the tee at the par-5 16th, Furyk was tied for the lead with Webb Simpson
at 1 over. After bogies on 16 and 18,
Furyk finished 3 over, two shots back of the winner, Simpson. An errant tee
shot in the trees at 16 might have been an eerie precursor to Furyk’s choking finish
at Bridgestone.
So, Bradley has now won
three tournaments in his pro career. His
first win was the 2011 HP Byron Nelson Championship. Bradley defeated Ryan Palmer
on the first playoff hole after both golfers finished at -3 after 72
holes. In the playoff, Bradley made par
despite a bad tee shot after Palmer hit his second shot into the water and made
bogey. The golfing immortal Ryuji Imada
had a one-shot lead with two holes remaining, but finished with back-to-back
bogies to finish at -2 for the tournament, one shot out of the playoff.
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| Imada's The One Smiling |
Bradley’s
second win was the 2011 PGA
Tournament. That’s the tournament in which
Jason Duffner, who stepped to the 15th tee with a four-stroke lead on the field
and a five-shot edge on Keegan Bradley, pooched the lead away and eventually lost
in a playoff to Keegan Bradley. (By the
way, Bradley followed his PGA victory with the following performances in
the majors: a T27 (+2) at the 2012 Masters, a T68 (+18)
at the US Open, and a T34 (+4) at the Open Championship. He did finish nicely defending his title at
the PGA last weekend, finishing T3 at -4, only nine shots back of the winner,
Rory McIlroy.)
Bradley
capped off 2011 with a victory in the two-day PGA Grand Slam of Golf in October
2011 in Bermuda, the event that pits the winners of the four majors head to
head for thirty-six holes (half the time of a real tournament, with no chance
of finishing less than fourth, and guaranteed to bring home at least 200 large –
not bad work if you can get it.) The Grand
Slam prize money doesn’t count towards your official PGA total, but hey, the
win still looks good on the resume.
Now
fast forward to the Bridgestone, and we see Bradley win again after another
classic collapse by the leader at the end of the tournament. Yes, indeed, Bradley is golf’s Mr. Lucky. So listen to his theme song (composed by the one
and only Henry Mancini) and try to imagine in what felicitous fashion Bradley will
(or perhaps might) win his next tournament.
AMDG
© 2012-21 R.E. Kelly
