If Keegan Bradley is the “American Ian Poulter,” as Tom Watson called his first captain’s pick for the 2014 U.S. team on Tuesday night, that’s because the 2011 PGA champion and the fierce European Ryder Cup competitor are “both nuts,” according to Rory McIlroy.
Crazy-eyed Ryder Cup stars Keegan Bradley, Ian Poulter are ‘both nuts,’ says Rory McIlroy
Wild-card picks Keegan Bradley and Ian Poulter were the hearts and souls of their respective Ryder Cup teams in 2012 and are likely to feed the frenzy again this year at Gleneagles.
Michael Cohen
Laughing ahead of this week’s BMW Championship when he shared his opinion of two golfers whose games he’s quite familiar with, McIlroy said on Wednesday that he appreciated the spark each brought to their respective squads two years ago at Medinah.
“If I was to compare sides, [Keegan’s] the guy on the U.S. team that could get anywhere close to the passion that Poulter shows,” said McIlroy, who tees it up regularly with Bradley on their home course and was the beneficiary of Poulter’s take-no-prisoners approach when he led Europe to an upset of the Americans in 2012. “I’ve played with him a lot down in Florida and I hang out with him and I know how badly he wanted to make that team.”
The wild-eyed Poulter, himself a wild-card pick of captain Paul McGinley due to his lone top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in 2014, was the architect of the Euro’s come-from-behind Miracle at Medinah.
Bradley has had an up-and-down season with six top-10s and five missed cuts. But Watson was impressed with the way the 2012 Ryder Cup rookie went after the Gleneagles track when he accompanied his future skipper on a reconnaissance mission to Scotland earlier this year.
And of all the Americans, Bradley -- who went 3-1 in his Ryder Cup debut and infused partner Phil Mickelson with his youthful enthusiasm -- is the one who can match the Englishman fist-pump for fist-pump, chest-bump for chest-bump. It’s a factor not lost on Watson.
“There are a lot of great pluses about Keegan,” said Watson, “but the most important thing he brings to it is his unbridled passion to play on the Ryder Cup team.”
And here’s something you won’t read in the box score: the three-time tour winner can also go one-on-one with Poulter when it comes to crazy eyes.
More to the point for Bradley, though, is making up for what went down in Chicago.
“I’ve made no secret how badly I want to go back and win the Ryder Cup,” Bradley said after he made the team. “This is a redemption year for a lot of guys who were on the team last year.”
