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comeback t hat ra n ks among the best. A collapse that few saw coming. There was even a player in a red shirt, pumping his fists with each clutch putt in the final, frenzied hour of the USPGA Championship. That player wasn't Tiger, of course. Woods had left the scene 48 hours earlier, having missed only his third cut in a major. The player in question was Keegan Bradley, a 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie, whose name sat amid a leaderboard littered with unfamiliar names. And it was he who delivered a memorable finish. Bradley was f ive shots behind the equally obscure Jason Dufner with only three holes to play after sculling his chip shot through the 15th green and into the water, leading to a triple bogey. He looked dead and buried, but reminded himself that no lead was safe on the final four holes of Atlanta Athletic Club, one of the most penal courses to have hosted the US PGA. "I just kept telling myself, 'Don't let that hole define this whole tournament,'" said Bradley. True to his word, the rake-thin Bradley, nephew of LPGA Tour great Pat Bradley, made back-to-back birdies, including a 40ft monster on the 17th, which put the heat well and truly on Dufner, who, quite simply, capitulated.
Rallying Rookie
Montana Pritchard/PGA of America
The US PGA Championship – or Glory's Last Shot, as the PGA of America is wont to describe this end-of-summer major shindig – produced what is has time and time again: a winner that nobody has ever heard of. But that didn't matter one bit. It has been a wonderful year of major championship golf and Keegan Bradley's triumph at an uncompromising Atlanta Athletic Club provided a thrilling – and fitting – climax 32
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Major Men: Keegan Bradley (left) staged a remarkable comeback to become only the third player to win a major on his debut; Jason Dufner (inset), who had been rocksolid for 14 holes of the final round, fell to pieces over the incredibly challenging closing stretch at Atlanta Athletic Club HKGOLFER.COM
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And what of US Open champion Rory McIlroy, the pre-event favourite and most popular player in the world right now? Well, on just the third hole of the tournament, and with his ball resting very close to – if not actually on – a tree root, the 22-year-old decided to take a good old whack at it. Bad move. In attempting the shot, McIlroy injured his arm so badly that it needed to be taped up. He carried on and made the cut but finished 19 shots off the pace. Bradley's win makes it seven straight majors by players who had never before captured a Grand Slam event, the longest streak ever. "I don't want to be one of the guys that kind of disappears," said Bradley, in reference, perhaps, to the likes of Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel who have won this championship and precious little else. "I would love to be up in a category with the best players and be mentioned with Phil Mickelson, one of my idols. I hope I don't disappear. I don't plan to." Mickelson had been the last American to win a major at the 2010 Masters, and perhaps it was only fitting that one of his protégés ended the drought. Mickelson has been playing money games during practice rounds at the big tournaments with Bradley, wanting him to be prepared to play for something more prestigious than cash. Bradley clearly took the lessons to heart.
AFP
Scandinavian Surge: It wasn't Rory McIlroy but Anders Hansen (above) and Robert Karlsson (right) that led the European challenge at AAC, the duo putting in tremendous final-round displays to narrowly miss out on the play-off 34
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Unflappable all afternoon, Dufner had been cruising. Finding nearly every fairway and hitting crisp iron shots to the heart of nearly every green, the 34-year-old, who had never won a tournament despite 10 years on the PGA Tour, was grinding out the kind of performance that Nick Faldo in his heyday would have been proud of. Until, that is, he reached the tee at the 15th, a gruesomely long par-three with water fronting the green. It was the water Dufner found, and although he managed to get up and down for a gutsy bogey, the tide was already turning. Knowing Bradley had birdied the 16th to cut his lead further, Dufner made two more bogeys – for three in a row – and only a good two-putt par at the water-laced 18th hole saved him from losing the championship in regulation play. While Dufner's fall wasn't as spectacular as Jean Van de Velde's at the Open at Carnoustie in 1999, it was surely just as painful, although the man himself put on a brave face after finishing a shot behind Bradley in the three-hole play-off. "Everyone struggled on them," said Dufner of the closing four holes. "Unfortunately, I had the lead and I struggled on them ... That was the deciding factor, and Keegan made a couple of birdies. But there's a lot to be learned from this and a lot of experience to be gained from this."
2011 US PGA Championship Results 1
Keegan Bradley*
USA
71 64 69 68
272
US$1,445,000
2
Jason Dufner
USA
70 65 68 69
272
US$865,000
3
Anders Hansen
DEN
68 69 70 66
273
US$545,000
4=
David Toms
USA
72 71 65 67
275
US$331,000
Scott Verplank
USA
67 69 69 70
275
US$331,000
Robert Karlsson
SWE
70 71 67 67
275
US$332,000
7
Adam Scott
AUS
69 69 70 68
276
US$259,000
8=
Lee Westwood
ENG
71 68 70 68
277
US$224,500
Luke Donald
ENG
70 71 68 68
277
US$224,500
10=
Kevin Na
USA
72 69 70 67
278
US$188,000
DA Points
USA
69 67 71 71
278
US$188,000
12=
Charl Schwartzel
RSA
71 71 66 71
279
US$132,786
Bill Haas
USA
68 73 69 69
279
US$132,786
Nick Watney
USA
70 71 68 70
279
US$132,786
Gary Woodland
USA
70 70 71 68
279
US$132,786
Steve Stricker
USA
63 74 69 73
279
US$132,786
Sergio Garcia
ESP
72 69 69 69
279
US$132,786
Trevor Immelman
RSA
69 71 71 68
279
US$132,786
19=
Matt Kuchar
USA
71 71 68 70
280
US$81,214
Phil Mickelson
USA
71 70 69 70
280
US$81,214
* Won following three-hole play-off
But to the victor goes the spoils and Bradley, who became only the third player in a hundred years to win a major on his debut, shared his joy with a spot of social networking. With the enormous Wanamaker Trophy at his side, Bradley took out his phone and snapped a picture of it. Before long he had posted the item on Twitter with three hash tags – "pgachampion. triplebogies. happiness." It feels unbelievable," Bradley said. "It seems like a dream and I'm afraid I'm going to wake up here in the next five minutes and it's not going to be real." The final major of the year was hard to believe for so many reasons. For a start there was the belly putter that Bradley was using. Traditionalists will balk at the thought of a man in his mid-20s using such a club, but in doing so Bradley became the first player in history to win using a long putter. (Angel Cabrera used a longer than normal putter when he won the Masters in 2009, but the crucial difference, say the experts, is that Cabrera didn't anchor the club to his body, a la Keegan). Secondly, it was Bradley who ended the United States longest drought in a major that had reached six. It wasn't Dustin Johnson and it certainly wasn't Tiger Woods that lifted American spirits – rather, it was the then No. 108 ranked Bradley who saved the day. HKGOLFER.COM
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