Woody Paige: Keegan Bradley seemed charmed on his way to BMW Championship win

CASTLE PINES — While drives, chips, bunker shots and putts were breaking bad for 46 professionals in the final round of the BMW Championship around the immaculate splendor in the grass of Castle Pines on Sunday, the breaks were all good for one player.

Golf’s new Captain America was the last man in the tournament and the last man standing on a picturesque afternoon beneath the Rockies.

On Aug. 25, 1985, Pat Bradley won the LPGA National Pro-Am at Lone Tree Golf Club south of Denver. On Aug. 25, 39 years later, her nephew Keegan Bradley won the BMW title seven miles away.

In the summer of ’86 both Keegan and The International tournament were born.

In September of 2025 Keegan Bradley will be the captain of the American team in the Ryder Cup. In September of this year Bradley, in all likelihood as a result of Sunday’s result, will be a member of the American team in the Presidents Cup. Strangely, only three players have won a PGA event after being named Ryder Cup captain. All three – Bradley, Jack Nicklaus and Davis Love III – were at Castle Pines the past week. Nicklaus, who designed and redesigned the magnificent course, and Love, who won The International twice, were at the party honoring Castle Pines’ history Wednesday night.

The 38-year-old Bradley once spent summers in Wyoming where his dad was a club pro and was the winner of the state’s amateur title in 2005. He certainly will return to Colorado for the next tournament held here (BMW in ’28) and vacations. He fell in love with crowds totaling 125,000 and chanting “U-S-A’’ as he crossed their cart paths and walked among them.

Keegan became a superhero at Castle Pines.

Look out! He could win the Tour Championship this week in Atlanta. Bradley jumped from 50th in the FedEx standings to begin the final tournament in fourth place. He was packing to go home to Florida last Sunday. Now he is behind Scottie Scheffler (who was a pedestrian at Castle Pines) Xander Schauffele (tied for fifth) and Hideki Matsuyama (who dropped out with a back issue) and ahead of Ludvig Aberg (who ended up a stroke behind Keegan at 11-under-par and level with Adam Scott and Sam Burns) and Rory McIlroy, who spent the week at Castle Pines throwing his 3 wood into the water, hitting one shot off two large rocks, hitting another shot Sunday bare-footed from the creek. And he broke his driver Sunday.

What a week! What a comeback for Castle Pines! What a time for Keenan Bradley!

“That’s No. 7’’ tour victory, he said. The No. 7 is important in Colorado sports.

“I was just grateful to be in this tournament.”

The former Wonderboy on tour, who was shunned from the last Ryder Cup team, tied for 59th (at plus-1) a week ago at the St. Jude playoff tournament in Memphis after sweating through the humidity and sweating that he was over and out.

He shot 66-68-70-72 and Sunday managed two birdies (on 1 and 17) and two bogeys (on 15 and 18). But while most of the rest of the field was breaking down during a final round of tricky winds, temperatures in the 90s, harsh pin placements and problematic distances to discern on the holes, Bradley mostly was calm, cool and calculating.

And he experienced a couple of good breaks.

Adam Scott was bunkered throughout the back nine and missed four par putts to slip from being tied with Bradley for the lead. Burns burned a 65, but his sandshot on 18 was inches off what would eventually have caused a playoff. The young Swede, Aberg, fired, but fell back when he scuffed a ball into Davy Jones’ locker (which wasn’t off the men’s grill, but at the bottom of a pond).

As it turned out, Bradley’s adversary was the course and himself. At 14 he flared a faded drive that initially appeared to be out-of-bounds, but he was fortunate that the ball settled in the pines and on the straw. He slithered a layup out of the trees, wedged on and made a par instead of, say, a snowman. He did bogey 15, but struck a career 5 iron with his second shot on the par 5, 17th 212 yards to within 15 feet and made the convincing birdie. “It was the most pure of a golf shot I’ve ever hit — a shot I’ll remember the rest of my life,’’ he said afterward. He was up by two on the 18th and nudged his par putt close and got a bogey to prevail by one.

Bradley did not break bad, but good.

He was last and first.