ATLANTA – Keegan Bradley still hasn’t unpacked his suitcase from the 2012 Ryder Cup. The Americans’ meltdown at Medinah remains such a painful memory that his team gear is still sitting in his garage in South Florida, collecting dust.
“I thought for a while I’ll never open it again,” he said Friday at East Lake. “So hopefully I get a chance to play on this team.”
Bradley has enjoyed a resurgent season, winning twice on Tour, including against the world’s best players in a signature event at the Travelers Championship. Through two rounds here at the Tour Championship he is alone in fourth place, three shots behind Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa. Bradley will go off in the penultimate pairing Saturday, along with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. It’s heady company that Bradley has worked hard to rejoin.
Whether it’s enough for him to achieve his ultimate goal of once again representing the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup remains to be seen. Captain Zach Johnson will make his picks on Tuesday, following the Tour’s season finale, and Bradley, ranked 11th in the team standings, is under consideration for one of the final picks.
Will what happens in this four-day net event matter?
Better yet: Should it matter?
“It certainly can’t hurt,” Bradley said.
To be sure, Johnson would leave himself open to second-guessing if he left at home the newly crowned FedExCup champion, a player who has openly professed his love for the Ryder Cup, who wants nothing more than to play in Italy. Now 37 years old, Bradley hasn’t been a part of the U.S. team since 2014.
“He knows who I am. He knows the type of player I am,” Bradley said. “But he also knows the type of player all these other guys are that are up for picks, and they’re all incredible players and good guys. So I’m going to do my best to play great golf the next two days and see what happens.”
While walking the fairways at East Lake, Bradley said he has to remind himself to snap back into the moment if he catches himself daydreaming about the Ryder Cup, or when he hears a fan outside the ropes express support for his chances. He said he thinks about it “every second.”
Over much of the past decade, Bradley said he couldn’t bring himself to watch much of the Ryder Cup on TV, because he never stood much of a chance to make the team. That won’t be the case this year, even if he doesn’t make the final roster.
“I’m going to be rooting hard,” he said. “I’ll watch and I’ll be pulling for the guys just as if I was playing.”
