Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports
When he’s not giving Phil Mickelson a hard time about his long-awaited British Open victory, Keegan Bradley is a pretty good golfer. Bradley is the defending champion at this week’s WGC – Bridgestone Invitational. Unfortunately for Bradley and the rest of the field, Tiger Woods has a seven stroke lead as the weekend begins. At this point, barring some extreme occurrence, every golfer not named Eldrick is basically playing for second place.
Currently in a tie for second place with Chris Wood and Bill Haas, Bradley has carded rounds of 66 and 68 over the first 36 holes. That is good enough to get him to six under par – and as I said, that’s seven shots back of El Tigre. Two bogeys on his second nine of the day yesterday (he started on the back nine) prevented Keegs from taking sole possession of second place. He actually played his second nine one over par – following a score of three under on his first half of the round.
Bradley has been driving the ball well so far this week – he’s tied for 16th in driving accuracy and tied for fifth in driving distance. At a course like Firestone Country Club, accuracy off of the tee is imperative in order to have consistent scoring chances. Unlike many other courses, if you’re in the long stuff off of the tee you’re going to have to scramble to make par more often than not.
In case you were wondering, the rest of the field has, indeed taken note of Tiger’s second round performance. “I played a great round of golf. Tiger, those first couple holes out there are definitely birdie holes, so I’d expect him to do that,” Bradley said. “You know, I hope he doesn’t go too low, but I’m in a good spot going into the weekend regardless.”
There might not be a great deal of drama left as to the eventual champion this week, but it will fun to watch the guys duke it out for second place.
Carl Conrad is the Senior Golf Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter or add him to your network on Google.
