Keegan's & Ko's summer gets even better
Ryder Cup captain might be Prez Cup player; Ko's golden moment extends to major
Keegan Bradley was the last man in and last man standing at BMW (Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
From the depths of despair to the elation of victory in the matter of a week, Keegan Bradley can — stunningly — set his sights on winning the FedEx Cup title this week in Atlanta.
He might also garner some consideration for the U.S. Presidents Cup team.
The 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain has already been appointed an assistant captain for Jim Furyk’s American team next month at Royal Montreal. But his finish Sunday at Castle Pines in Colorado at the BMW Championship moved him into 10th place in the final standings, with Furyk set to make his six wild-card picks on Sept. 3.
“I don’t know where that’s going to go, but I’m happy to do whatever — play whatever role they want me to play,” Bradley said after his one-shot victory over Adam Scott, Sam Burns and Ludvig Åberg. “I think being the Ryder Cup captain has put me into this category of sort of of player when they haven’t really had a Ryder Cup captain that’s been playing full-time on the tour.
“One of my goals was to make that Presidents Cup team. So we’ll see. I hope I didn’t throw a huge wrench in everybody’s plans, but I’m proud to be in consideration.”
Bradley, 38, was even happier to get his seventh PGA Tour win, shooting a final-round 72 at Castle Pines to win the tournament for the second time and move to fourth place in the FedEx Cup standings at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
A week earlier, Bradley was despondent, believing he had blown his opportunity to get to the BMW Championship by falling out of the top 50.
Getting to the second FedEx playoff event comes with numerous perks, one of them being a spot in all eight signature events in 2025. Bradley saw that opportunity slipping away with a poor tournament at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, where he had made plans to head home to Florida while nervously watching all the scenarios play out.
“I was devastated,” Bradley said. “I finished my round on Sunday. I’m walking the range, looking at people that are warming up that are going to determine my future, really. I packed up all my stuff. I got to the hotel. I booked a flight home. I didn’t think I was going to make it.
“I had the coverage on. I had my iPad on the featured holes. I had my phone watching — at two separate times I had to unplug my phone because it got too hot from me refreshing every second.
“I was picturing my next year of not knowing where I was playing. It was going to be tough on my family, tough on me. I was really disappointed that I wasn’t going to be out there with the guys with the Ryder Cup coming up.
“Picturing how I’m not going to be playing, I’m going to have to travel to these tournaments. I want to be in the final groups with these guys. I want to be watching them make the cut on Friday. I want to see how they interact with their other players in the locker room, on flights to and from tournaments. Everything counts.
“I was seeing that slipping away, really. There was a point I was looking at the leaderboard late in the day, and I was like, ‘I’m going to make it,’ and it was just surreal. I rushed to the airport and came here.”
The victory moved the 2011 PGA Championship winner from 50th in the FedEx Cup standings all the way to fourth, which means he will begin play Thursday in Atlanta at East Lake Golf Club four strokes behind Scottie Scheffler in the staggered strokes format used to determine the FedEx Cup champion.
While nobody wants to spot Scheffler that kind of advantage, the No. 1-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking has gone to Atlanta the last two years as the top seed and failed to come away with the top prize.
And this week, Bradley actually finished 13 shots better than Scheffler.
“I know, that is a little silly; geez, I’ll take it,” Bradley said. “When I showed up here this week, honestly I didn’t think I’d be going to Atlanta. Scottie (Vale), my caddie, asked me if I wanted to know where I need to finish, and I said no. I still don’t know. But I knew it had to be really high.
“Playing this week — last week I was looking at the leaderboard the whole time, and this week that was never on my mind. I was just trying to win the tournament. Maybe I can. I’m playing great. I feel very lucky to be in Atlanta. To make the Tour Championship two years in a row is a big deal.”
That will be the consolation for Scott, who shot 63 on Friday but could never get it going over the weekend, shooting 74-72 to finish a stroke out of playoff and see his victory drought stretch to four-and-a-half years. He last won at the 2020 Genesis Invitational.
But Scott didn’t figure to be in Atlanta next week, either. He entered the week 41st in points. He advanced along with Tommy Fleetwood and Chris Kirk. Brian Harman, Jason Day, Davis Thompson and Denny McCarthy were the four players who had been in the top 30 and were bounced out, seeing their seasons end.
“I’m disappointed not to have won today, but I’m pretty happy to be going to East Lake because that wasn’t on the cards a couple weeks ago,” Scott said. “I’ve played well. After a couple days of rest and getting my head into next week, it’ll be fun to go and have a couple good rounds and kind of find my way up the leaderboard at East Lake.”
For the first time, the Tour Championship will have a $100 million bonus pool, with $25 million going to the winner.
Lydia Ko collects her third major championship (Morgan Harlow/R&A via Getty Images)
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (R&A) — Lydia Ko crowned the most magical month of her storied career by overcoming a host of fellow superstars to secure glory in the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews.
Ko’s final-round 69 — completed with a crucial birdie on the 18th — was enough to clinch victory at 7-under par, two shots better than a quartet of players who’ve also reached No. 1 in the Rolex Women’s Ranking — defending champion Lilia Vu, current world No. 1 Nelly Korda, overnight leader Jiyai Shin and China’s Ruoning Yin.
“Something that was too good to be true happened, and I honestly didn’t think it could be any better and here I am as the AIG Women's Open Champion,” Ko said. “Obviously being here at the Old Course at St Andrews, it makes it so much more special.”
It was impossible to call a winner as a memorable Championship moved towards the most dramatic of conclusions amid gusting winds at the home of golf. Four players were tied for the lead with just a handful of holes to go, but it was Ko who finished the strongest, producing some quality golf in the face of challenging conditions and extreme pressure.
More than eight years since she claimed her second major victory as a teenager, Ko has now added the AIG Women’s Open title to an Olympic gold medal in Paris a fortnight earlier that sealed her place in the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Vu put up a magnificent defense of her title and could have forced a playoff with a birdie at the 18th, but the champion at Walton Heath 12 months ago left her 20-foot putt to tie short and eventually three-putted for bogey to share second with Korda, Shin and Yin.
Korda seemed in control to win her second major of the year when she was two shots ahead on the par-5 14th. But it took her five strokes to get down from the rough bear the green and her three-putt double erased her advantage.
“Listen, it’s golf,” said Korda. “Unfortunately I messed up over the weekend twice coming down the stretch. Theoretically that’s what kind of cost me the tournament but I played well.”
Ariya Jutanugarn finished in sixth at 3-under, meaning each of the top six spaces on the leaderboard were taken by players who have topped the Rolex Rankings.
Fittingly, the Smyth Salver awarded to the low amateur also went to a world No. 1, as England’s Lottie Woad rounded off her week by finishing in a tie for 10th on 1-under.
Ko shared the Smyth Salver with Georgia Hall at this venue 11 years earlier, but the New Zealander can now celebrate claiming an even bigger prize.
“I played here when I was 16 in 2013, I think I was 16. I was 16,” Ko said. “I don’t think I got to really enjoy and realize what an amazing place this is, and now that I’m a little older and hopefully a little wiser, I just got to realise what an historic and special place this golf course is, and it’s honestly been such a fairy tale. Yeah, I’m on Cloud Nine, really.”
In her pre-tournament news conference, Ko spoke eloquently about how difficult it is to win majors, with her previous success having come at the 2016 ANA Inspiration.
The 27-year-old could hardly have faced a stiffer test as she aimed to end her wait for another title, given both the calibre of opposition in her way and the ultra-demanding weather that once again made scoring tough.
Yet Ko was up to the challenge. After starting the final day three behind Shin — the Women’s British Open champion of 2008 and 2012 — Ko improved her position with birdies from 25 feet at the fourth and another at the 10th, where a pitch from the left rough left a tap-in.
The back nine proved particularly difficult for the field, but Ko picked up a further shot at the par-5 14th as she followed a driver off the deck with another precise wedge.
Although a bogey followed at 15, the Paris 2024 gold medalist swiftly found herself in a share of the lead for the first time as Korda, who had forged ahead on 8-under, made a double-bogey on 14 to drop back alongside Ko and Shin.
That trio were soon joined on six-under by Vu, who followed back-to-back bogeys on the 10th and 11th by holing a huge birdie putt on the next and then birdieing the 14th to breathe new life into her title defense.
There would have been five players on 6-under had Yin not left a putt half a roll short after a sensational approach to the 17th.
The decisive moments ultimately came courtesy of Ko on 16, 17 and 18. A clutch par save on the first of those holes was followed by a 3-wood in a downpour into 25 feet at the Road Hole for a par on the toughest hole on the course.
Ko then came up with the dream finish at the last, pitching in close before calmly converting a birdie putt in front of the R&A Clubhouse to set the target at 7-under.
Bogeys at 15 and 17 ended Shin’s challenge, while Korda also bogeyed the penultimate hole to slip two behind.
That left Vu, who made a gutsy par on the 17th, as the sole player who could force a playoff. But when she failed to convert a 20-footer for a three on the final hole, Ko’s amazing August had a fairytale finish.
“I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs between 2015, 2016 to 2024,” Ko said. “A lot of things have happened. When things are going well, it’s kind of hard to think about when you’re not playing well because all you’re really doing is just enjoying that moment.
“And on the other hand, when things aren’t going well, you feel like you’re never going to get out of that lull. I’ve been in both of those positions.”