Keegan Bradley believed that this week’s golf performance may tick a lot of boxes.
The possibility of his first three-win season on the TOUR, the highest FedExCup result of his career, millions in bonus money, and of course a Ryder Cup invitation.
Several people towards the top of the leaderboard concur with this opinion. Everyone wants to make the TOUR Championship and win it. With record-breaking prize money at risk, the financial stakes have never been higher.
But there’s also a deadline approaching for a small number of Americans. Zach Johnson will choose his six captain’s picks for the U.S. Ryder Cup squad less than 48 hours after a FedExCup champion is announced.
Those with a chance of doing both are aware of what a double-dip may mean: winning the TOUR’s top prize and turning that into a hard-to-get slot in Rome.
“I consider it constantly. I’m sort of attempting to accept it.” Bradley said on Friday.
He has made the necessary preparations to compete for 36 holes. The Starting Strokes format of the FedExCup allowed him to completely erase his seven-shot deficit on Thursday. He then shot a second-round 68 to be three strokes behind leaders Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland.
On Friday, the round was significantly more challenging. He only made one birdie on the front nine, and after bogeying the 13th par-4, he temporarily fell five strokes behind the leader while returning to even par. His round and tournament chances were maintained by 3 birdies in the final 5 holes.
Bradley stated, “I feel better about today’s round,” after sinking back-to-back birdies on holes 14 and 15, respectively, with a pair of mid-range putts. With a birdie on hole 18, he finished 13 under.
Over the past month, Bradley has come under increasing pressure. The stress has not decreased when he departs a tournament; rather, it has increased. While two victories earlier this season all but guaranteed that would change, he hadn’t been to East Lake since 2018, and he didn’t want to waste the chance once he got there. He wants to surpass his eighth-place performance from last year, which was a career-high, especially if it would help his Ryder Cup ambitions.
The first two playoff games didn’t do anything to calm his worries. He placed T29 at the BMW Championship and T43 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
“Man, it’s tough. Every shot is significant when it comes to the end of the year and when you’re in this kind of environment.” he said, also stating that he is unsure whether a strong showing will mean the difference between being selected for the Ryder Cup team or not, but “it certainly can’t hurt.”
Others in the field are in a similar situation, but they haven’t seized the opportunity like Bradley. Sam Burns (-8), Russell Henley (-7), and Lucas Glover (-6) all require miraculous weekends to enter the Ryder Cup race and take the stage. Burns has played the best so far, shooting consecutive rounds of 66, but he still trails Bradley by five strokes.
