PONTE VEDRA BEACH \u2014 His opening shot ricocheted off a cart path into a bush. A little later, a drive vanished after clipping a tree. \u201cNo one knew where it went,\u201d Keegan Bradley said Friday afternoon at the Players Championship, a day after a 77. \u201cI didn\u2019t even really look for it. We didn\u2019t know where to look. It might be in the tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bad breaks, in isolation. Except they also encapsulate the struggle that has followed him here, across months and miles, inseparable as a shadow. That\u2019s the risk when you give something your heart; it can come back in pieces.<\/p>\n
Bradley\u2019s surprise appointment as Ryder Cup captain had the makings of a dream. A chance to be a playing captain, to win at the course that he called home in college, sure. But Bradley resonated with the golf populace because in an era when American stars had been accused of treating the Ryder Cup as an obligation rather than a calling, he was a true believer\u2014the kind of guy the Europeans had always seemed to produce naturally, someone for whom the event wasn\u2019t a tangent to his career but the north star.<\/p>\n
Instead, Bethpage became something he has to carry. The Americans Sunday comeback was extraordinary\u2014a last-gasp surge that briefly made everything feel possible\u2014but it couldn\u2019t undo Friday and Saturday, couldn\u2019t redeem an atmosphere that sullied the event\u2019s reputation, couldn\u2019t make the math work. He\u2019d given the Ryder Cup everything. It wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
We love the Ryder Cup because it\u2019s fleeting, because its moments ignite and vanish, leaving only what we carry forward. The problem is you don\u2019t always get to choose what stays with you.<\/p>\n
For Bradley, plenty has stayed. He entered that week ranked 11th in the world. The 39-year-old\u2019s now outside the top 20, having missed three cuts in five starts on the PGA Tour this season with a T-29 in a limited field his best finish. He\u2019s 111th in strokes gained overall, 156th in putting. <\/p>\n
Bradley insists the numbers don\u2019t fully reflect his golf and says he hasn\u2019t been playing as poorly as the results suggest. But they do tell you where his head still is. Months later, a part of Bradley is still standing on that first tee at Bethpage, trying to figure out what went wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a little difficult. I\u2019m still heartbroken from the Ryder Cup,\u201d Bradley admitted on Friday. \u201cSo trying my best to separate myself and move on, but it\u2019s hard. I think about it a lot. I think about the guys a lot, and I\u2019m still in the process of getting past all that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year compounded everything. Bradley was trying to manage a team while simultaneously playing his way onto it, a division of self that would fracture anyone\u2019s focus. But the harder challenge wasn\u2019t logistical but emotional, and that didn\u2019t end when the Euros left with the cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless you\u2019re a captain of the Ryder Cup team you just have no idea what goes into it and the emotional toll that it takes on you,\u201d he said. \u201cI think like a lot of guys that do it, they\u2019re basically done playing, so they never again \u2026 I\u2019m the first person to have to sort of deal with this, get back out there, try to be one of the best players in the world and make the next team.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is no blueprint for what he\u2019s attempting. He gave everything to a destination he couldn\u2019t reach, and now he has to find his way back to a game that requires its own total commitment. Those two things don\u2019t easily coexist.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s notable is that he\u2019s not bitter about any of it. Bradley acknowledges that the playing-captain arrangement \u201cisn\u2019t really what the position is about,\u201d and understands that a future captaincy isn\u2019t his to decide. He can\u2019t undo Bethpage. But he can answer it.<\/p>\n
Which made Friday feel like something. He was miles outside the cutline when the day began, and an opening bogey suggested the turnaround wasn\u2019t coming today either. Then he eagled the second, got things rolling on the back nine with five birdies, and signed for a 66. One of the better rounds of the morning, conjured from a week that had offered him nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis course is as stressful of a golf course as we play anywhere in the world,\u201d Bradley said afterward. \u201cEvery shot is brutal. So really proud of the way I played today. I really needed this round.\u201d<\/p>\n
A win is likely out of reach\u2014he\u2019s nine off the lead heading into the weekend\u2014a good finish the more realistic goal. But for Bradley right now, a good finish is enough. It\u2019s a foothold.<\/p>\n
Healing doesn\u2019t announce itself. It just shows up, sometimes as a 66 on a brutal golf course on a Friday afternoon in March, when you needed it most.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH \u2014 His opening shot ricocheted off a cart path into a bush. A little later,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,44,85],"class_list":["post-539229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}