Bradley proud of Irish roots

Keegan Bradley may not have been born for Ryder Cup battle but he has certainly been groomed for it from a very early age.

The 2011 PGA champion made a more than impressive debut at Medinah Country Club yesterday, sinking the winning putt from 35 feet at the 15th that put the USA’s first point on the board and firing up a Chicago crowd desperate for American success.

Bradley delivered, partnering the US’s most capped player in Phil Mickelson to gain inflict a first foursomes defeat in the Ryder Cup careers of Europe’s golden pairing of Luke Donald and Sergio Garcia. It was an early psychological hammer blow to José Maria Olazabal’s hopes, one executed by a rising star in the game who has been preparing for this moment since he was a small boy.

Golf has been in the Bradley genes since Keegan’s great grandparents left Ballycotton, Co. Cork for a new life in the United States. Keegan’s grandfather taught his children the game in New England, the 26-year-old’s father, Mark, becoming a PGA professional and his aunt, Pat, launching a career that would garner six majors and a place in golf’s hall of fame.

It has also frequently brought them back to Ireland, with Mark and Pat’s other siblings taking part in the Kenmare Three Brothers tournament and Keegan making his European Tour debut this year at Royal Portrush in the Irish Open.

The major champion pre-empted his return by tweeting a picture of himself on an Irish golf course during a childhood holiday. The details were sketchy to Keegan but Mark Bradley was happy to fill in the details.

“That was Ballybunion, I’m in it too,” Mark said. “Keegan was putting and it was so cute because he was just a little kid and he’s got my putter and it was like a belly putter for him. That was 1993, he was seven and that was his first introduction to Ireland.”

There is a family trip planned for a couple of years from now when Keegan’s grandmother turns 90 with Mark saying of his mother: “She wants to go back to Ireland one more time. Her mother was born in Co. Cork and she wants to go back when she’s 90, so we’re talking about all going back and playing the Three Brothers.”

Keegan may be back sooner, though, with his father adding: “He loves the Irish, he loves his Irish heritage and he was treated so well in Ireland he felt like a rock star, and he’d missed the cut.

“I didn’t go with him this time but I will not miss the Irish Open next year. He’s definitely going back. He has Irish blood in him and he’s very proud of that.”

Keegan was born in 1986, the same year his aunt won an LPGA record three majors in one year.

With such a background, Keegan was bound to play golf but his father’s teaching instilled at least a recognition of the Ryder Cup from an early age.

“Ryder Cup, Walker Cup,” Mark Bradley, now PGA Head Professional at Jackson Hole in Wyoming, recalled this week at Medinah.

“I don’t want to offend any amateurs but when Keegan hit a good shot I’d tell him ‘Ryder Cup’, when he hit a bad shot I’d say ‘Walker Cup’ and I wouldn’t let him back in the buggy, he’d have to walk and I’d take off.

“If he hit a marginal shot, he’d say ‘Dad, that was so Ryder Cup’ and I’d go ‘not it’s not’ and take off on him. We had fun though.

“My dad, he was tough, a tyrant, and it worked for Pat, it didn’t work for me. I stuck my thumb out on the side of the road and hitch-hiked to Wyoming to go skiing. But I just didn’t know it at the time but it was my education.”

Despite chasing his father’s golf buggy, Keegan’s education was less harsh, although, says father Mark: “I would be so afraid of saying something that would take away from his joy of the game. And I think that’s one of the things that makes me so proud, I taught him the game, yes, but my sister and my mother and my family will always says to me that I taught him the love of the game. I’m not going to argue with that.”

The next step in Keegan’s Ryder Cup education came when Mark took his 13-year-old son to the 1999 matches at Brookline Country Club.

“He couldn’t see because he was so little and I had him on my shoulders, watching, and I’ll never forget, we were on the 18th hole and it was Colin Montgomerie and Payne Stewart and Keegan hit me on my arm and said ‘Dad, let me down, let me down, I think I can get on the green’. He snuck between the people’s legs and got to the green and then he was on it right after they won.

Thirteen years later and father and son are back at a Ryder Cup, Mark holding teaching clinics for spectators at the PGA Learning Centre on the grounds at Medinah, Keegan keeping them excited on the course.