First he gets the bad news that he didn’t make the U.S. Presidents Cup team. Now, PGA champ Keegan Bradley discovers that he may get shut out of Player of the Year honors as well.
Heck, the 25-year-old New England native is experiencing as bad a month as his beloved Red Sox did in September. Okay, no one could have as hideous a collapse as the despicable 2011 version of Boston’s overpaid crybabies, but it must come as quite a blow to the tour rookie that his two wins, including a major championship, probably won’t be good enough to get him to the finish line in PoY voting.
Not after world No. 1 Luke Donald and Webb Simpson both announced on Friday that they’ll go head-to-head for the PGA money title in next week’s season finale in Orlando. And with Simpson vying for his third win of the year at the McGladrey Classic to go with his 10 top-10 finishes, Bradley’s two missed cuts down the stretch of the FedEx Cup playoffs (10 in 28 events overall in 2011) could be as disastrous to his PoY chances as fried chicken and beer were to the Sox post-season hopes.
Simpson’s two wins since Labor Day — with two more potential Ws on the horizon — may be enough to clinch best-player honors, especially if he tops the money list. Donald, on the other hand, may have only one win stateside so far, but he’ll tee it up for another and would certainly earn some votes if he could sew up the cash prize.
The two primary contenders (Nick Watney’s two wins and 10 top-10 finishes should muster some support as well) may have zero majors between them, but that didn’t stop Jim Furyk from hoisting the hardware last year.
Bradley, by the way, will compete in the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda while Donald and Simpson are knocking it around at Disney. Given the way things are working out, he might have preferred to give up that perk for majors winners for a chance to bolster his PoY credentials.
Oh well. As Bradley must have said a few times about the Sox before they finally broke through in 2004, wait’ll next year.
