Day: June 12, 2022

Commissioner Jay Monahan says he ‘couldn’t be more excited’ about TOUR’s futureCommissioner Jay Monahan says he ‘couldn’t be more excited’ about TOUR’s future

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022| 21:59

While Justin Rose chased the lowest round in TOUR history and Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas dueled down the stretch of a prestigious national championship, PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan appeared on CBS’ Sunday broadcast of the RBC Canadian Open to answer questions about the recent suspensions of a group of players and to reiterate his optimism about the future of the PGA TOUR. Commissioner Monahan addressed the first event of the LIV Golf Invitational Series, which was played earlier this week, but the difference between that “exhibition,” as Monahan called it, and what was occurring in the final round of the RBC Canadian Open provided the perfect contrast to illustrate the strength of the PGA TOUR. “Why do they need us so badly?” Commissioner Monahan asked, referring to players who wanted to compete in the Saudi-backed series and still have an option to play some events on the PGA TOUR. “Those players have chosen to play in a series of exhibition matches against the same players over and over again. You look at that versus what we see here today, and that’s why they need us so badly. You have true, pure competition with the best players in the world here at the RBC Canadian Open with millions of fans watching. “And in this game, it’s pure and true competition that creates the profile of the world’s greatest players and that’s why they need us. That’s what we do. But we aren’t going to allow players to free ride off our loyal members, the best players in the world.” Monahan said questions about how the major championships and Official World Golf Ranking would treat the new series would need to be answered by those respective organizations and that his focus is on the TOUR’s membership and the full TOUR schedule. The makeup of the TOUR’s membership – which features young, talented, established players from across the globe – is one reason the Commissioner said he is bullish on his organization’s future. The top 20 players in the world ranking represent nine different countries on four continents. The FedExCup is shaping up to be a race between two 25-year-olds experiencing breakout seasons, Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, with stars like THE PLAYERS champion Cameron Smith and former FedExCup champions Patrick Cantlay, Thomas and McIlroy in the mix. “Life is all about meaning and purpose and we are an organization with meaning and purpose,” Commissioner Monahan said. “The best players in the world make wonderful things happen on this platform day in and day out, week in and week out.” The LIV Golf Invitational Series features players with guaranteed contracts playing in 54-hole, no cut events, trading large paychecks for compelling competition. The funding of that circuit has drawn criticism, including from a group of 9/11 survivors and families who lost loved ones in the tragedy. While the Commissioner did not directly address those criticisms, he did ask, “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA TOUR?” Being aligned with the TOUR means being aligned with an organization that will undergo unprecedented growth in the next decade and continue to make an impact in each community it visits, he emphasized. “This organization is going to continue to evolve … and we are going to continue to advocate for and grow this game in the right way and continue to make meaningful contributions as an organization,” Commissioner Monahan said. “I couldn’t be more excited about the future, the future we all have together.”

Click here to read the full article…

Read MoreRead More

Nine Things to Know: The Country ClubNine Things to Know: The Country Club

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022| 15:00

The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, has been the scene of some of the game’s most historic moments, so it’s fitting that it will offer an old-school test for this week’s U.S. Open. You like tight fairways, thick rough, greens that are smaller than small, and big, bodacious rock outcroppings? Then The Country Club should satisfy you. Said Gil Hanse, who has been consulting with TCC officials for more than 10 years to update this brilliant course: “It’s going to be an interesting mental test.” In other words, the U.S. Open the way it used to be. To prep you for the 122nd U.S. Open and just the fourth at The Country Club, here are Nine Things to Know about this historic course. 1. BUILDING AN ICON If ever a property in the golf world has evolved, it is The Country Club. From that day in 1892 when a group of gentlemen discussed the need for a club where outdoor activities were central, this stately property in Brookline – a mere 6 ½ miles from Beacon Hill in the heart of downtown Boston – the emphasis has been on getting it right. Members built the first three holes in 1893, then brought in Scotsman Willie Campbell as head professional. Campbell designed six more holes and by 1899 he had created an 18-hole course. In the meantime, club officials at The Country Club had joined with peers at Newport Country Club, Shinnecock Golf Club, Chicago Golf Club, and St. Andrew’s Golf Links outside of New York City to form the United States Golf Association, which began running national championships. It wasn’t until 1902 that The Country Club hosted its first national championship, the U.S. Women’s Amateur. But should you forget that the original intent was to create a club with a variety of activities, rest assured that TCC is faithful to that intent. Golfers share this vaunted club with those who enjoy skeet-shooting, skating, hockey, swimming tennis, paddle and squash, and should you mention the words “Canadian Club,” be warned that in these parts, that is not a whisky; it is the beloved group of curlers who use TCC as their home port. 2. PERHAPS YOU’VE HEARD OF 1913 Seeing as how a movie, several books, decades of endless newspaper and magazine articles, and a heralded scholarship have been created around the hero of arguably golf’s greatest story, we’ll assume you know of Francis Ouimet. To recap: The 20-year-old former caddie at TCC walked across the street from his home at 246 Clyde Street to play in the 1913 U.S. Open as an amateur. Ouimet opened with 77 and trailed by six. After shooting a second-round 74, he was four off the lead. Another 74 in the third round tied him for lead. All three 54-hole leaders — Ouimet, Harry Vardon, and Ted Ray — closed with 79 to force an 18-hole playoff. Ouimet, of course, won the Saturday playoff with a 72. Vardon shot 77, Ray 78. It remains an overlooked nugget to this story, but for a good part of 1913, the U.S. Open was destined to go to the National Golf Links of America out on Long Island. Accommodating the schedules of Vardon and Ray, two of the biggest stars of the day, was an issue. TCC passed on an August date. When the English golfers said September was fine, TCC jumped back in and got its first U.S. Open. Now we’re not saying Francis Ouimet couldn’t have won at NGLA, but he certainly wouldn’t have walked across the street, now would he? And isn’t that the most charming flavor to the story? The aftermath: A common man, Ouimet showed that the game was for the masses and the number of golf courses in the U.S. doubled over the next generation. Ouimet enjoyed a lifetime as an amateur icon on par with Bobby Jones and his friendship with his 10-year-old caddie, Eddie Lowery, lasted until his death in 1967. Lowery was a pallbearer for his great friend. 3. YEAH, BUT WHO WON WHEN IT MATTERED? “Harry Vardon and Edward Ray, those two wonder-workers of the links, demonstrated yesterday at The Country Club, Brookline, that they are the superiors of Francis Ouimet . . . ” Ouch. All these years later, it still hurts to reach such words, but here’s the good news: They were written about a tournament played in 1920, seven years after the golf match that really counted. Oh, and this 4-and-3 triumph was a 36-hole contest that involved the 1913 lads – Ouimet, Vardon, and Ray – but it was a team match. Vardon and Ray combined to spank Ouimet and Jesse Guilford before 3,000 TCC members and their guests. Bottom line, it was never going to be easy for Francis Ouimet to follow-up his 1913 drama in any subsequent trip to TCC and for the most part his competitions there paled in comparison. He did play well in the 1915 State Open, but at 308 he was tied for fourth, 10 behind the winner, Walter Hagen. Ouimet was not in the field in 1920 for the State Amateur (won by Fred Wright), but two years later there were shock waves throughout The Country Club in Round 2 of the U.S. Amateur. “Rudy sadly blasted the hopes of Boston followers of golf,” read the Boston Globe, chronicling a 4-and-2 win for Rudolph Knepper of Sioux City, Iowa, over the beloved Ouimet. Small consolation arrived in 1925 when Ouimet won for the sixth and final time in the State Amateur, the only other championship of note that he won at TCC. Ouimet was there – for a short while, at least – when in the fall of ’34 the U.S. Amateur made its third visit to Clyde Street. Just three years removed from his second U.S. Amateur win and still just 41 (prime time back then), Ouimet was knocked out in the first round by Bobby Jones. That wouldn’t seem bad, except it was Bobby Jones of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and not the “real” Bobby Jones, who was four years into retirement. 4. ARE WE HORSEMEN OR GOLFERS? A serious identity crisis consumed members of The Country Club in the 1880s and raged on for parts of the next three decades. Race or golf? Horsemen were first on the scene as the competitive racing on their track was the source of immense pleasure. Golfers were a little later and in the minority, so there seemed to be an amicable existence. But as golfers increased and the course went from three to nine to 18 holes “the golfers were averse to having horsemen ride over their fairways and the riders claimed the golfers were not always careful to avoid hitting them,” wrote former club historian Elmer Cappers. It wasn’t until 1935 that a clear winner was declared when the last horse race was held. As a concession to club history, or perhaps owed to a membership that doesn’t like change, the track remained in place (it circled the first and 18th holes) until 1969. 5. WHAT’S WITH THE 17TH HOLE Hey, we’re not suggesting that the green at the 17th hole should be kissed a la Ben Crenshaw at the 1999 Ryder Cup, but if you’re going to embrace the history of major golf events here, then it starts with the penultimate hole. As far as design goes, the 17th – aka “Elbow” – is a short dogleg left that will not put any scare into competitors. It’s only 373 yards and short irons will be the club of choice for the majority of players who find the fairway. But history tells us this hole will be prime turf for drama. Francis Ouimet birdied No. 17 in Round 4 to help get into a playoff against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. His stunning victory in Saturday’s playoff was nailed down with another birdie at 17. Two strokes behind Tony Lema at the 1963 U.S. Open, Julius Boros pulled even at 17 when he birdied and Lema made bogey. Jacky Cupit and Arnold Palmer could have won outright, only they made double-bogey and bogey, respectively, at 17 to join Boros in a three-way tie for first. Boros won the playoff (and, yes, he birdied 17 again). Curtis Strange wasn’t devastated by his ordeal with the 17th (he three-putted for bogey) even though it left him tied with Nick Faldo in the 1988 U.S. Open. That’s because Strange easily won the playoff, 71-75. Which all set up the Ryder Cup drama in ’99. Battling back from a 10-6 deficit through two days of team play, the Americans had a chance to win, but they desperately needed at least a half-point out of Justin Leonard’s match against Jose Maria Olazabal. The Spaniard had the shorter birdie try at 17, but somehow when Leonard slam-dunked his 40-footer into the cup, it sent the crowd, the American players and wives, and Crenshaw into a frenzy. 6. CALL HIM MAJOR HANSE For the second time in a month, a major championship will be held at a course restored by Gil Hanse and his righthand man, Jim Wagner. “It’s a completely different landscape than any place I’ve been,” said Hanse, who started consulting with TCC officials in 2009. “You can’t talk about The Country Club without mentioning the landforms, the ledges, and the puddingstone rock.” The rock outcroppings harken back to a day when architects didn’t have heavy machinery at their disposal, so they instead challenged golfers to play around or over the landforms. Renowned for its small greens and thick, lush rough, The Country Club puts a premium on hitting fairways and greens. In other words, it’s a quintessential U.S. Open stage. What Hanse was commissioned to do was find a few new tees, extend The Country Club another 200 yards (though at 7,264 it’s still relatively short), and oversee a tree-clearing project that required great care. It was needed for agronomic and aesthetic purposes, but Hanse was careful not to take away the blind shots that are a part of TCC’s character. There’s been a lot of talk about the 131-yard, par-3 11th hole that was in play when Ouimet won in 1913 but wasn’t when the U.S. Open was here in 1963 and ’88. Even with a wedge, players will be tested to find the small green, which has plenty of tilt. But it’s the beefy holes that will likely play a key role in this year’s trip to The Country Club. The par-4 third hole is 499 yards and bends left to right, only you never truly see the fairway. When you do stand over your approach to the green, you look at a pond in the back that is famous for being where 1956 Olympic gold medalist Tenley Albright honed her skating skills. Another 499-yard brute, the par-4 10th, is called “Himalayas.” The tee shot must carry an outcropping of rock down the right. Once you clear that, you must deal with another outcropping down the left. It played as a par-5 in the 1999 Ryder Cup. Rarely do you hear that par-5s are “brutes” for these PGA TOUR lads who are accustomed to hitting driver, 6-iron into 550-yard holes. But the 619-yard, par-5 14th at The Country Club likely won’t yield many eagles and, in fact, you might see a good many players miss the green with their third shot. 7. BEFORE OUIMET, THERE WAS HECKER The Country Club’s first national championship was the 1902 U.S. Women’s Amateur. It was fitting for a club that was described at the start of the 20th century as “very active with regard to women’s events.” The writer of those words was Ruth Underhill, winner of the 1899 U.S. Women’s Amateur. The 1902 Women’s Amateur ended in a successful defense for national champion Genevieve Hecker of West Orange, N.J. While the Curtis sisters – Margaret and Hariot – of Manchester, 30 miles north of Boston, drew the biggest crowds, it was Hecker who owned their hearts at the end. She defeated Louisa A. Wells of TCC, 4 and 3. Margaret Curtis was the medalist, however, for a second consecutive year after reaching the championship match in 1900. After losing again in the final in 1905, Margaret won the title in 1907, ’11 and ’12. 8. OTHER CHAMPIONSHIPS You’ve probably heard a lot about this week’s U.S. Open. We know you’ve heard loads and loads about the 1913 U.S. Open. But here’s the thing: When this year’s championship is in the books, it will mean that as many U.S. Opens have been played at The Country Club as at the Myopia Hunt Club in bucolic South Hamilton, 35 miles north of Brookline. Myopia used to be “in the rota,” hosting the U.S. Open in 1898, 1901, 1905, 1908. The Country Club, on the other hand, debuted as a U.S. Open course in 1913 then waited 50 years for the next, 25 for the third, and 34 for this one. Just don’t think that The Country Club membership has shut the gates to competition, because it hasn’t. This will be the 17th USGA competition held at TCC and only Merion (18) has held more. At The Country Club, there have been six U.S. Amateurs (most recently in 2013 when Matt Fitzpatrick won), three U.S. Women’s Amateurs, a U.S. Girls’ Junior, and a U.S. Junior Amateur and two Walker Cups. TCC is the only club to host a Walker Cup and a Ryder Cup (the memorable ’99 affair). 9. STRANGE STORIES Allan Strange told his uncle, Jordan Ball, that it was a great idea, but he couldn’t go. “Every time I go, he doesn’t play well,” said Allan. But Uncle Jordan was determined, Allan relented, and so the two of them, plus two other friends, headed to Boston first thing Monday morning on June 20, 1988. They were going to be there for Curtis Strange’s U.S. Open playoff against Nick Faldo. Curtis’ identical twin, Allan had given the PGA TOUR a whirl after he got out of East Tennessee State, the same year his brother graduated from Wake Forest. Curtis’ career took off, Allan moved on and got into financial services, but those contrasting paths couldn’t change their spitting image. Which was a good thing because Jordan’s plan to attend the playoff was missing a key ingredient. “They didn’t have tickets,” laughed Curtis. But this was 1988, remember. Security was a lot looser and so Ball told Allan to get behind the wheel of their rental. When they got to the guardhouse leading into TCC, the security officer thinks it’s Curtis Strange and waves him, adding, “Have a great day, Curtis; beat his ass.” If the story ended there, it would have been brilliant fun. But Curtis gets twice the charge out of the story when he found out later that Allan enjoyed a few cold lagers as he stood around the putting green. Fans started to take note. “Imagine, they had to be saying to themselves, ‘Look at Curtis, he’s preparing like I do. He’s drinking a beer.’ ” The punchline to the story is more poignant. The brothers never did meet each other afterward. Too crowded, too frenzied. “But that night at the hotel, the phone rang around 1:30,” said Curtis. “It was Allan and we talked for an hour. It was nice.”

Click here to read the full article…

Read MoreRead More

Keegan Bradley is back at Brookline for U.S. OpenKeegan Bradley is back at Brookline for U.S. Open

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022| 15:00

Keegan Bradley isn’t freaking out about the U.S. Open’s return to The Country Club. He’s New England to the bone, but he wants to be chill. Zen. Think Tom Brady inside two minutes. OK, fine, this is the first time the U.S. Open has come to Bradley’s beloved Boston since 1988, when he was 2. And, yes, this is the most significant Beantown golf happening since the ’99 Ryder Cup, which Bradley watched from atop his father’s shoulders. And, sure, his dad Mark Bradley, a PGA professional, once met Boston golf legend Francis Ouimet. Oh, and in Keegan’s home office in Jupiter, Florida, he has a signed boxing glove from Lowell, Massachusetts brawler Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg in “The Fighter”) and a shoe from Celtics legend Paul Pierce. He has the puck he dropped at a Bruins game, the coin he flipped at a Patriots game, the ball he threw at a Red Sox game. Who doesn’t? A U.S. Open in Boston is nothing, even if Bradley did graduate from Hopkinton High School, nearly 33 miles from The Country Club, which, hey, 33 was Larry Bird’s number, and beloved old Red Sox catcher Carton “Pudge” Fisk is the uncle of Bradley’s wife, Jillian, and – Oh, never mind. Bradley is sort of freaking out about this U.S. Open. But he’s trying not to. “It’s big,” he said in a lengthy interview at his house in Jupiter, Florida. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of; when you’re from New England, it becomes who you are. But I’ve sort of had to block this out in my brain and try to minimize it. I knew it was a big deal because no one in my family was talking about it, and then I qualified, and here come the texts. “It’s no secret,” he continued, “that this is going to be a tough week because of how much I want to play well, and when you try too hard to make it happen, it never works out.” The Country Club was, however, the site of the ultimate win for a hometown kid, when Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur who grew up across the street from the course, won the 1913 U.S. Open in a playoff with two of the greatest players of the day. They made a movie about that, too. Bradley knows all about it; he’s been told his dad, Mark, was 12 when he met the great man, who was by then around 65. Like Ouimet, Keegan Bradley has been overlooked. And like Ward, he has been knocked down only to pick himself up off the mat. Into the teeth of the storm Bradley wanted to play for a college golf powerhouse, but it didn’t happen, so he went to St. John’s University in Queens, New York. (He now says it was the best possible place for him.) “It’s tough to get many looks when you come from Massachusetts,” said Jon Curran, Bradley’s friend from Hopkinton High, who played the PGA TOUR and now works in insurance. “Golf in Massachusetts is just not cool, and if you were good at it, it felt like we were super nerds.” Or super rugged; Bradley might have picked a more golf-friendly climate than Woodstock, Vermont (before his dad took a club pro job in Hopkinton), but that, too, was formative. Golf in the snow and sleet? Bring it on. He has become America’s premier bad-weather golfer. At this year’s PLAYERS Championship, in brutal wind and cold, Bradley got the wrong end of the draw and finished fifth. At the rain-plagued Wells Fargo Championship, he tied for second. That finish clinched his spot in this year’s U.S. Open, earning him an exemption via the world ranking that allowed him to skip the uncertainty of Final Qualifying. At the 2011 Bryon Nelson, his first TOUR win, weekend rounds featured winds of 25 mph with gusts hitting 40. He’s made so much hay in bad weather he’s basically human Gore-Tex. “He’s so into his process and practices really, really well, and efficiently, so when things have a chance to go awry, his stuff’s really tight,” Curran said. “It takes a lot more than some rain or cold for stuff to go off kilter, and that’s because of all the work that he puts in.” The most challenging storm for him has been golf’s anchoring ban, which went into effect in 2016. Bradley, who had used a belly-putter, was suddenly adrift. “I think I underestimated the effect of it,” he said. Although he made the 2012 and 2014 U.S. Ryder Cup teams, and the 2013 U.S. Presidents Cup team, Bradley was knocked backward and took up a grim residency outside the top 150 in Strokes Gained: Putting. And the stress of it all crept into other facets of his game. Ah, but this is Bradley we’re talking about. Former ski racer. Overlooked amateur golfer. He likes it hard and rebuilt his game under the tutelage of coach Darren May, who teaches at Grove XXIII, the South Florida club built by the basketball legend Michael Jordan, who Bradley counts as a friend. (A framed scorecard in his office commemorates the Medalist member-guest in which Bradley and Jordan were teammates, signed by Tiger Woods, who played with Ahmad Rashad.) Bradley controlled what he could control, which meant making sure he was one of the TOUR’s best from tee to green. He would be ready when his putting came back to him. If it came back. “I’ve been on every putting machine ever made,” he said. “And the people running them would say, ‘Your stroke looks great!’ And that was even more infuriating.” Determined to find answers, Bradley finally sought help from renowned putting coach Phil Kenyon, and they began working together at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT last October. “Technically he was in a good place; whatever journey he’d been on, he wasn’t a basket case,” said Kenyon, who also works with Max Homa, Francesco Molinari and others. “It was about getting him to believe in his technical skills, because golf is so much about confidence, but it was also about improving his green-reading and alignment.” Their work has paid big dividends. Bradley led the field in putting at the Wells Fargo and was gaining strokes on the field on the greens as of last week (81st in Strokes Gained: Putting). “My green-reading is so much better,” he said. Curran said the stats were always somewhat deceiving. “He was never a bad putter,” he said. “It was never a thing like, ooh, boy, you gotta look away. Whenever we played him for money at the Grove or Bear’s Club, the guy was freakin’ good no matter what he used. You were thinking he was going to make everything he looked at.” Boston to his core That Bradley sticks in the fight goes to his Boston roots, and that Micky Ward boxing glove. “I love everything about his story,” Bradley said. “He’s the perfect Boston athlete, just a hard-nosed, blue-collar guy. Tough. Resilient. I love the movie, love everything about his career. And my dad’s side of the family is from near Lowell, so to them he’s an even bigger hero.” Bradley battled through the anchoring ban to win the BMW Championship in 2018, his first win in six years. But this latest resurgence is another example of his resilience. Last year, he dropped out of the top 150 in the world ranking for the first time since 2011, back when he was a winless TOUR rookie. Now he’s back inside the top 50 thanks to five top-10s already this season, four of which have come since March. At 33rd in the FedExCup entering last week, he’s on pace for his best FedExCup finish in four years. Brendan Steele, Bradley’s BFF on TOUR and partner at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (they finished T4 in April), calls Bradley the quintessential grinder. “He says, ‘I always want to shoot the best score I can,’” Steele said. “He doesn’t subscribe to the theory of, if he’s 8 over, he may as well go for it and blast driver, like a lot of guys out here. He’s like, no, no, I still want to shoot the best score I can.” Bradley’s aunt is LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley, and he recalls trying to catch her attention during tournaments only to have her look right through him. “She was so dialed in she wouldn’t even see me,” he said. “I remember thinking how cool that was.” Keegan, too, gets dialed in and stays there, come what may. In addition to his remarkable bad-weather rounds, he overcame a late triple bogey and won in a playoff over Jason Dufner at the 2011 PGA Championship, his first-ever major. (So much for rookie nerves.) There is something very Bostonian about that. It’s Ward refusing to stay down; the Red Sox besting the New York Yankees after going down 0-3 in the 2004 ALCS; Brady and New England’s history-making 2017 Super Bowl comeback against the Atlanta Falcons. It all seems to be in Bradley’s blood. “He lives and dies Patriots,” Steele said. “We’ve got a group text with Jon Curran and Jamie Lovemark, and Keegan sends us something about the Patriots almost daily. It’s like, come on, dude! We’re at that portion of the day where we’ve got to talk about the Patriots? In April?” Added Curran, “He’s very well informed. He listens to Felger and Mazz, which is like the local sports radio feed. I don’t know how he gets it, but he does. He’ll text like an op-ed piece from the bowels of the internet on what’s going on with the Patriots.” Bradley will throw out the first pitch before the Red Sox/A’s game Tuesday, and he’s determined to enjoy it more than he did in 2011, when the New York Yankees were in town and the stands were swollen with fans. Standing on the hallowed Fenway dirt for the biggest 60-foot-6-inch toss of his life, Bradley was a nervous wreck, and it didn’t help that Red Sox pitchers Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester gave him conflicting advice on whether he should throw from the windup. “They’re both golfers,” he said, “and I think they were messing with me.” Also, he was hoping to throw to big Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek; instead, out came 5-foot-8-inch second baseman Dustin Pedroia. (Yep, definitely messing with him.) In the end, Bradley didn’t throw from the windup, although it was all such a blur, he barely remembers anything. “I threw it a little high,” he said, “but I wasn’t going to bounce it up there. It was a 5 out of 10.” In his day job, he wants to contend five times a year. He wants to make the U.S. Presidents Cup Team that will defend its title at Quail Hollow in the fall. And he wants to look good. Bradley is a Jordan athlete who recently had to rent a storage unit for his sprawling shoe collection, much to Jill’s relief, and he’s had a special pair made up for this U.S. Open. “They’re going to be decked out with Boston stuff,” Curran said. “I think there’s something about Carlton Fisk on there, and other stuff, and this is a guy who doesn’t love attention.” Could Bradley win his second major and fifth TOUR title overall this week? He has not lifted a trophy since the 2018 BMW Championship, but odd things happen at The Country Club, where Ouimet beat favored Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in 1913. This, too, was where Ben Crenshaw’s U.S. Ryder Cup team trailed 10-6 when Crenshaw wagged his finger and said, “I’m a big believer in fate; I have a good feeling about tomorrow.” The Americans won, 14.5–13.5. “We went Friday and Sunday,” Bradley said of that historic week, when asked about it at the 2014 Ryder Cup. “I was on my dad’s shoulders when Justin made that putt. I was on 18 green, but I could see through the trees, and I remember seeing all the red shirts running by.” It was, at the time, the greatest comeback in the history of the event. And there it is again. Willpower. Fortitude. Bradley has seen players go through a dip, only to rally at the end their careers. He’s only 35. He hopes he can conjure something similar. “Almost every week, someone will say, ‘It’s so great to see you playing good again,’” he said. “And I’ll thank them, but it’s not really a compliment. I’ve made the second-to-last playoff event every year but twice, and one of those was during COVID, which was weird for everybody, playing different courses. I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent, even though it’s top-heavy early in my career. I have a lot of good years left, and I’ve got more to prove.”

Click here to read the full article…

Read MoreRead More