Captain Keegan gets a second chance
Bradley sneaks into BMW and takes the lead; Major journey of Women's Open
After suffering/surviving “brutal” weekend in Memphis, Keegan Bradley starts BMW hot (Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
Keegan Bradley called last Sunday “one of the toughest afternoons of my PGA Tour career. It was really brutal.”
That’s saying something considering Bradley was a part of one of the worst Ryder Cup meltdowns in history at Medinah and suffered a pretty brutal snubbing by captain Zach Johnson last year. But Bradley sat on the edge of his seat on Sunday watching his fate in the FedEx Cup playoffs ride on the misfortunes of others.
“It was horrible, really horrible,” Bradley said Wednesday at Castle Pines after playing in the pro-am. “It was one of the toughest afternoons I’ve had. This is my 14th year on tour. It felt like being at tour (qualifying) school or something.
“It was not very much fun. The disappointing thing was I haven’t had the best year, but I put myself in position to make the Tour Championship. I was 39th (in FedEx Cup points heading to Memphis.) There was a lot of movement there. We all kind of thought I was in good shape. But that’s what the playoffs are about.”
Bradley opened the FedEx St. Jude Championship with rounds of 69 and 70 but found himself falling in the standings. A third-round 74 put him out of the top 50 and even the final-round 68 didn’t make him feel very good as hee would have rely on others to falter to let him back in.
Players such as Maverick McNealy and Tom Kim could have bumped him out and ultimately it was Kim — who finished the tournament 6-6-6 — who fell out and led to Bradley getting the last spot in the BMW Championship.
So Bradley got to Castle Pines this week through the back door with little to lose. Needing a huge week to climb the standings into the top 30 to reach the Tour Championship at East Lake next week, Bradley got off to a dream start in the high altitude, firing a 66-under 66 to take the first round lead by a shot over last week’s winner Hideki Matsuyama.
“I just went out and played as if I would play a normal round,” Bradley said Thursday. “We talked about it before, Scottie (Vail, his caddie) and I. We just said, let’s just play normal.”
Qualifying among the top 30 for East Lake gets players exemptions into the majors. But just getting into this week’s event in Colorado was pretty huge, especially for the man named 2025 Ryder Cup captain last month. The top 50 get guaranteed spots in all eight 2025 signature events.
“This top 50 is becoming the most important thing we play for out here on tour,” Bradley said. “Those elevated events have so many FedEx Cup points. It’s all the tournaments you want to play, forget about the points. It’s the tournaments with the most prestige, the most history. It’s really important.
“I want to be out there with the guys and the Ryder Cup team. I want to be playing with them, on the range with them, in the locker room, in the tournament. It was really important for me to be in this top 50.”
That is what made Sunday especially tough on Bradley after what has been a relatively disappointing season in which he’s posted just two top-10 finishes.
“You hold yourself to a standard of playing in those tournaments and being at that level,” he said. “All of a sudden it was looking like I wasn’t going to be in those events. I want to go win Bay Hill and Memorial (two of the signature events). I want to have those on my résumé. When you’re not playing them, it’s brutal.”
It will take at least a top-five finish this weekend for Bradley to make it to East Lake. Even after a strong start, it’s not something he can try to force by being overly aggressive and going for broke.
“I don’t play very good when I do that,” he said. “It’s going to be a regular week. I try to birdie every hole I play anyway, so if I try harder to make birdies, normally they don’t come. I won’t look at where I stand. Last week I tried not to look. This week I got to have a really high finish any way. Hopefully I’m watching the leaderboard and have a reason to.”
Three-time Women’s Open winner Karrie Webb counts one as major (Rob Casey/SNS Group/Getty Images)
A ‘major’ distinction about Women’s Open
By Alex Miceli
The Women’s British Open has existed since 1976 when amateur Jenny Lee Smith won at Fulford Golf Club in England.
In the event’s early days, the tournament was less competitive than it is today. It has gone in and out of various sponsorship incarnations from Pretty Polly to Hitachi to Burberry to Weetabix to Ricoh and now AIG. In 2020, it dropped the designation “British” from its moniker to coincide with the R&A’s branding.
By 1984, when Japan’s Ayako Okamoto won at Woburn Golf Club, the championship in its eighth year drew stronger fields. The venues were improving as well, with a men’s Open rota course like Royal Birkdale first sprinkled into the rotation in 1982 and ’86.
The winners’ names also developed more of a household flavor of familiarity: Betsy King (1985); Laura Davies (1986); Alison Nichols (1987); Jane Geddes (1989); Patty Sheehan (1992); Liselotte Neumann (1994); and Karrie Webb (1995 and ’97).
Finally, the LPGA decided in 2001 that Women’s Open would receive major championship designation. This meant Se Ri Pak’s win that year at Sunningdale was finally considered a major victory.
Unfortunately, the previous 24 Women’s Opens were not retroactively considered majors and, to this day, still have not received such status.
The R&A has a different feeling on the subject.
“I view them as having won a major,” Martin Slumbers, the outgoing chief executive of the R&A, said of winners of the Women’s Open prior to 2001. “I think this is a major championship. I think it’s really important that there’s the U.S. Women’s and our Open championship. I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t a championship before 2001. I’m not quite sure, but I’ve always viewed it as one of the most important championships.”
The LPGA has not wavered in 23 years from its position that, prior to 2001, winners of the Women’s Open were not considered major wins.
“This event has a long and storied history, which we value and appreciate,” the LPGA said through a spokesman. “The tournament was co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour for one year in 1984, and it became a co-sanctioned LPGA Tour event again starting in 1994. We recognize all winners of this historic event as major champions once the event was elevated to major distinction in 2001, in alignment with how we have approached other LPGA-sanctioned major championships throughout our history.”
Australian Karrie Webb has won three Women’s Opens, but the two she won before 2002 at Turnberry are not considered major. And while Webb always considered the event significant, she doesn’t think her two wins before 2001 should count as majors.
“No, I don’t, I don’t think so.,” Webb said of the earlier events. “I always entered that week feeling that it was an important week. But it’s different when you’re not playing for a major trophy versus a regular trophy.”
The LPGA has a consistent history of not retroactively giving events major status until they have designated them as such.
That is contrary to the PGA Tour than counts every Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open as major events and all winners as major champions even though the “major” or “grand slam” terminology didn’t predate all the performances.
Charley Hull leads Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu on a wild first-round ride (Oisin Keniry/R&A via Getty Images)
Marquee trio blows away Old Course
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (R&A) — The cream rose to the top in a fascinating first round of the 2024 AIG Women’s Open, which ended with last year’s runner-up, Charley Hull, one shot clear of Nelly Korda and Ruoning Yin.
World No. 6 Yin held sole possession of the lead for almost nine hours, courtesy of a four-under 68 compiled in the toughest conditions of a gusty day on the Old Course.
However, as the winds finally eased in the evening, Hull and Korda both took full advantage, with the former birdieing the final hole to overhaul Yin with a 5-under 67.
Korda, the world No. 1, picked up shots on each of the last two holes to match Yin’s 68, while the third member of the marquee grouping, defending champion Lilia Vu, was also ominously placed in a six-way share of fourth on 3-under with Jenny Shin, Mi Hyang Lee, Andrea Lee, Patty Tavatanakit and Mao Saigo.
Another major winner, Hyo Joo Kim, and Momoko Osato shared 10th on two-under, while Olympic gold medalist Lydia Ko and 2018 AIG Women’s Open champion Georgia Hall were among a clutch of players one shot further back, the latter benefiting from an eagle two on her final hole, the ninth.
There was no doubting the most eye-catching group in the draw for rounds one and two and Hull, Korda and Vu certainly lived up to expectations as they combined for a 12-under aggregate that was a remarkable 11 shots better than any other trio.
Hull, three-times a runner-up in majors including her second-placed finish behind Vu at Walton Heath last year, was even-par after eight holes, but caught fire around the turn with birdies at 9, 10 and 12.
An opportunity to pull level with Yin was missed at the par-5 14th, after she had been close to the green in two, but Hull responded brilliantly with immaculate birdie threes on the 15th and 18th, where her second shot came close to going in.
Korda provided a wonderful example of how to navigate the Old Course, picking up strokes on both par-5s, the short par-4 ninth — where she drove the green — and the final hole, which played as the easiest in round one.
Korda also claimed a bonus birdie on the Road Hole 17th, following a superb drive and approach, while her lone dropped shot came on the challenging eighth, the site of Hull’s only bogey.
Vu’s best work came earlier in the round as she turned in 33 with the aid of a lengthy birdie putt on the seventh and an extraordinary putt from at least 70 feet on the first.
Last year’s champion then held position on the back nine, remaining firmly in contention for a successful defense of the trophy she claimed 12 months ago.