CROMWELL, Connecticut – The moment Keegan Bradley’s 139-yard approach shot on the scheduled final hole of the Travelers Championship left his 9-iron, the New England favorite uttered, “Come on, baby.”
The ball obviously listened, as it stopped 5 feet, 8 inches from the cup, leading to yet another round of thumbs-up as a delirious partisan crowd chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A” as he approached the green.
Bradley, the 2023 Travelers champion, had trailed playing partner Tommy Fleetwood by a shot on the Signature Event’s 72nd hole, but when the Englishman missed a 7-foot par putt, it opened the door for the Vermont native to notch his eighth PGA Tour victory, including the 2011 PGA Championship. When Bradley converted, he had won his hometown tournament for a second time with a closing 2-under-par 68 for a 72-hole total of 15-under 265 and a one-stroke victory over Fleetwood (72) and Russell Henley, who holed a 90-foot chip on No. 18 for 69. Henley might have been in a playoff if he hadn’t called a one-stroke penalty on himself on the eighth hole in the second round even though no one else saw his ball barely move in the rough.
“This is absolutely incredible,” Bradley said after the latest memorable finish to Connecticut’s biggest sporting event at TPC River Highlands. “Of all the shots and all the putts I hit, I think I’m going to remember that last one the most.
“I’ve always gotten really great support here (in 15 consecutive starts), but today was insane. The crowd and the atmosphere and the scene, and I just did a great job of, like staying present because that could have got me out of my routine, out of what I was doing, but I did a good job of staying in my little zone.”
Once his final putt fell, Bradley chest-pumped caddie Scott Vail, pumped his fists several times and started celebrating with the raucous gallery that rained down “U.S.A.” in a final crescendo of cheers for the U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Then as he began to depart the green, he continued his celebration with hugs for wife Jillian and sons Logan and Cooper, who received miniature replica Travelers trophies during the awards ceremony.
“Well, sometimes when I watch guys win tournaments and they don’t do anything I don’t get it because this is your chance to explode,” said Bradley, who shot a tournament-record, 23-under 257 in a three-stroke victory in 2023. “We work so hard to get to these moments, and we work so hard on pushing all of our emotions down. For me, it’s like that’s tough, like I’m holding that in, I want to do that on the second hole, so for me to be able to let that out is really fun.”
Bradley’s final stroke certainly wasn’t his only memorable shot. He sank a 64-foot birdie putt from the front of the ninth green, his longest of the year, a 37-foot birdie putt on No. 15 and a 12-foot comebacker for par at the seventh that he called “my biggest putt of the day.”
“I felt like I was chasing all day,” said Bradley, the tournament’s eighth multiple winner. “I’d get within one and then I’d bogey the next hole and go down to two. I’d get within one, go down two, and all of the sudden I’m down three after 14. (Fleetwood) missing that putt (on No. 16) definitely helped me, but I kept reminding myself that so many things can happen on the last four holes. I mean, there’s water on almost every hole and I knew this was gonna be tough to come down the stretch for Tommy to get his first (PGA Tour) win, and I just tried to keep my head down, try to hit good shots.”
Bradley’s rollercoaster final round netted him a $3.6 million prize from a $20 million purse plus 700 FedExCup points in the eighth and final Signature Event of the year.
“I was on the 18th tee and I looked out and I couldn’t believe how many people were up there, and then I hit a perfect drive and saw it land on the fairway and heard the crowd really cheering. I’ve never heard that before when I hit a drive,” Bradley said. “When I was walking up to the ball they were cheering me on and then when it was my turn to hit, the crowd really started to cheer. I couldn’t believe it, I had to take a second to get it together because I needed to hit a shot. … I’m not a very calm guy and I felt, for me, very calm over that putt, which was strange.”
Many feel the victory clinched a spot on Captain Bradley’s U.S. Ryder Cup Team that will face Europe on Sept. 26-28 at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y. The top six finishers in the Ryder Cup points standings through the BMW Championships automatically qualify. “Captain America” was openly disappointed he wasn’t one of Zach Johnson’s picks in 2023 and now might be the U.S.’s first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.
Bradley was named captain a year ago Sunday and has carried himself perfectly in that role without selfishness. His win Sunday moved him to a career-best seventh in the world rankings and ninth on the Ryder Cup points list, and Fleetwood is likely to be on the European Team.
“My whole life, every year I was out here I wanted to play on the Ryder Cup team,” Bradley said, “and then this would be the first year where maybe I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be the captain and, of course, this is what happens. But we’ll see. I’m going to do whatever I think is best for the team.”
Bradley then hedged his initial sentiments of being on the team only if he qualified.
“Whether that’s me on the team, this certainly changes a lot of things,” he said. “I was never going to play on the team unless I had won a tournament and so that’s changed, but we’ll see. Listen, this (win) changes the story a little bit. I never would have thought about playing if I hadn’t won. This definitely opens the door to play. I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not, but I certainly have to take a pretty hard look at what’s best for the team.”
While Bradley could revel in winning a tournament that he often attended as a teenager and inspired him to pursue the game, it was a crushing loss for Fleetwood, 34, who has 11 professional wins, seven in Europe, is ranked ninth in the world but has the most Top-10 finishes without a win (42) on the PGA Tour in 159 starts since they began keeping track in 1983. He also was second to Paul Lowry in the 2019 Open Championship, won a silver medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris behind defending Travelers champion and No. 1-ranked Scottie Scheffler, paired with Francisco Molinari to become the first pairing to win all four of their matches in Europe’s win in 2018 and has been a regular fixture among the top 25 for the last two years.
But Fleetwood still has a distinction that he would have loved to shed. He fell victim to a similar fate against a local favorite in the 2023 RBC Canadian Open when Nick Taylor made an improbable 72-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to win his national open.
“Search goes on, I guess,” said Fleetwood, who had a three-stroke lead starting the day and didn’t have a bogey on the back nine until the two of the five that he made on Sunday. “When (the first win) happens it will be very, very sweet. I know I keep saying it, but I haven’t really been in a position where I’ve really been in contention to really worry about when my win might come. Today was one of those days, led for 71 holes, and it didn’t happen. But, in my mind, I’ve won loads of PGA Tour events, I just haven’t done it in reality and I’m sure that time will come if I keep working.”
Harris English, who beat Kramer Hickok in a tournament-record eight-hole playoff in 2021, birdied four of the last six holes to shoot 65 and tie for fourth at 267 with Jason Day (68).
English and Day finished one ahead of the top two players in the world, Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. After opening with a triple-bogey 7, his worst hole of the year, in shooting 72 on Saturday, his highest score in 55 rounds, Scheffler shot a bogey-free 65 for 268. McIlroy, who became the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam when he won the Masters in April, had six birdies in closing with 65.
J.J. Spaun, who scored a dramatic victory in the U.S. Open a week earlier, had eight birdies in a 63, the low round of the day by two strokes, to finish in a tie for 14th at 273.
Award-winning CBS announcer Jim Nantz might have had the best summation of the final round when he said, “It’s mind-boggling what happened out there.” And that was before it was announced the tournament raised a record of more than $4 million for 200 local charities.
