Golf World Monday - August 22, 2011

tim rosaforte keegan bradley goes back home

keegan bradley spent his first week as pga champion moving from an apartment he was renting in Jupiter, fla., to a condo on the intracoastal he purchased before he won at atlanta athletic club. typical of the way bradley rolls, two of his former college teammates will be taking over the lease on his old apartment, guys he bunked with on the st. John’s campus.

furniture, but little do they
know i left a lot of work for
them to do. i left some stuff
in the garage.”
what bradley didn’t take
with him sunday on a
pilgrimage to long island
was the replica wanamaker
trophy that’s his for a year.
“the [trophy] case,” he
said, “is the size of a king-
size bed.”
not only is he the favorite
to win rookie of the year
honors, but player of the
year honors and a spot on
fred couples’ presidents
cup team are a possibility
as well, depending on how
he does in the fedex cup
playoffs.

tuesday, he plans to play in a golf tournament with st. John’s alumni (wearing one of his old st. John’s shirts), then drive to plainfield cc, while his boys ballo and beirne are playing in the met open, just like he did.

mike ballo and evan beirne were underclassmen when bradley was the kid in the red sox hat making the all-big east team. they want to follow in bradley’s footsteps, play the mini-tours, go to q school, make it to the pga tour and win a major—just like keegan.

instead, he flew into new york, picked up a courtesy car for the barclays and drove to queens for a dinner in his honor at wheat-ley hills gc organized by st. John’s coach frank darby and dr. glenn muraca, his sponsor after college.

but what bradley was really looking forward to was driving that courtesy car to the house where the current st. John’s team resides and crashing overnight. he looked forward to a few beers and sharing his experiences from the mini-tours to a dramatic comeback at atlanta ac.

“one of the things i can say
about him is he doesn’t for-
get where he came from,”
beirne said. “he still reach-
es out to us, to the younger
guys especially. some guys
get out there [on tour] and
they go hollywood. not
keegan. he’s a special,
special guy.”
“the guys i played with [in
college] are still my best
friends, those two espe-
cially,” bradley said satur-
day night from his new pad.
“it seemed like the perfect
situation. i left them the
in 2009, bradley was play-
ing the hooters tour and
down to his last $1,000
when muraca wired him
$6,000 to cover his q-
school application. bradley
qualified for the nationwide
tour, and one year after
that for the pga tour. now
“we would cram into
some junky apartment and
basically live on top of each
other,” bradley said. “we’d
do everything together,
whether it was going to
dinner, going to basketball
games or just going out to
have fun. there’s not a day
that goes by that i don’t talk
to at least one of the guys.”