FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- While attending St. John's, Keegan Bradley and his teammates had a rare privilege -- playing the famous Black Course at Bethpage State Park, the site of this week's Ryder Cup, when it was closed to the public on Mondays.
Then-St. John's coach Frank Darby had worked out the deal with Bethpage Black superintendent Craig Currier, whom Darby befriended while helping stage the New York State Open at the course over the years.
The Johnnies didn't have a home course, so they bounced around clubs in the New York metropolitan area. When private clubs closed for the winter, Bethpage Black stayed open for a few more weeks. The state park course known as the "People's Country Club" soon became Bradley's favorite.
"It was like being able to shoot basketball at Madison Square Garden with no one in the stadium, no one there," said Mike Ballo Jr., one of Bradley's teammates. "It's just such a surreal experience."
There was one rule: Bradley and his teammates could play only holes 3 through 14, what is known as the "Short Course," and weren't allowed to cross Round Swamp Road to play the last four, which were too close to the clubhouse and security guards.
With those restrictions in place, Bradley and his teammates had to skip the 15th, the most difficult hole on one of the toughest courses in America. They'd never get a chance to tackle the par-3 17th and its shallow green, or walk up the 18th fairway like Tiger Woods did when he won the 2002 U.S. Open.
It was like taking your kids to Disney World and telling them they couldn't ride the roller coasters and had to stay on the tea cups all day.
Finally, one day during the fall of Bradley's senior season in 2007-08, he and teammate George Zolotas had had enough. They crossed Round Swamp Road and played Nos. 15-18. By the time they reached the 18th green, there was a crowd of people waiting for them.
"Everybody was just staring at us like, 'What are you guys doing out here?'" Zolotas said. "We kind of just thought we could slip in and slip out, but it really didn't work out like that."
The state park police called Currier, who was able to defuse the situation.
"I don't blame him for doing it, and I don't think they regret it at all," Ballo said. "And now, years later, we can laugh about it, but that was bad. It wasn't good because for years, no one knew we were there. Then all of a sudden, everyone knew we were there."
This weekend, Bradley, 39, has the freedom to go wherever he wants at Bethpage Black as the youngest captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team since 34-year-old Jack Nicklaus in 1963. Win or lose against the Europeans, the experience is sure to feel like a full-circle moment for the Vermont native, who has spent much of his PGA Tour career until now feeling like an outsider.
"I came here as an 18-year-old kid going to St. John's, played the Red Course [in] our home tournaments, and to come back as the Ryder Cup captain is something beyond my wildest dreams," Bradley said this week.
AFTER THE EUROPEANS trounced the Americans 16½-11½ at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Rome two years ago, the U.S. team needed new leadership and fresh ideas. Even after Tiger Woods passed on the opportunity, Bradley was the most unlikely of choices -- for myriad reasons.
Bradley never considered himself to be among the sport's upper class despite capturing the 2011 PGA Championship as a rookie and amassing eight victories on tour in his career. He wasn't invited to meetings with other top golfers when the PGA Tour restructured in the wake of the LIV Golf threat, and he was unceremoniously left off the 2023 Ryder Cup team despite finishing 11th in points.
Cameras were rolling when then-U.S. captain Zach Johnson called Bradley to break the news that he wasn't getting one of his six captain's picks, a moment golf fans have watched over and over again in the Netflix series, "Full Swing."
"That moment was real," Bradley said last year. "I was crushed. It took us a while to get over that -- our whole family. We were devastated."
For a kid who grew up going downhill on the ski slopes of Vermont, Bradley's golf career has often felt like an uphill climb. His father, Mark Bradley, was an avid skier -- Keegan's paternal grandparents opened their first ski shop in 1958. Mark's sister, Pat Bradley, is a World Golf Hall of Famer after winning six major championships and 31 tournaments on the LPGA Tour. She had also been an Alpine ski racer, along with their brother, John, who still runs a ski shop in Manchester, Vermont.
Mark Bradley spent one year at the University of Vermont before hitchhiking across Canada in the spring of 1973. His intended destination was Alaska, but he became sick and weak while camping during the trip. He crossed the road, stuck out his thumb and headed south to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He spent 10 years working as a fly-fishing guide there and met Keegan's mother, Kaye.
While Kaye and Mark Bradley were driving back to Vermont, they passed a golf course on Interstate 80 in Ohio. Knowing the fishing wasn't great in his home state, Mark Bradley decided to start playing golf again. Kaye got him a membership to Woodstock Country Club. Out of the blue, he was offered a job to become the club pro at Haystack Golf Course in Wilmington, Vermont.
From the age of 6, Keegan went to work with his father nearly every day. When Keegan failed to get up one morning, Mark went to work without him. His mother dropped him off at the club a couple of hours later, and Keegan wasn't happy his father had left without him.
"Hey, Keegan, I can't be late," Mark told him. "Try being late to the first tee in a golf tournament and see what happens."
Mark never had to get Keegan up again. For a few years, Mark put a pillow and blanket in his Honda Civic, and Keegan slept for a couple of hours before walking into the pro shop. He'd hit balls on the practice range and play the course for hours every day. When Keegan was old enough to go to school, the school bus dropped him at Woodstock Country Club, where his clubs were waiting for him.
"I gave him a good grip," Mark said. "I taught him this and that, but I kept my mouth shut."
When Keegan was in first grade, his teacher asked him to draw a picture of what he wanted to do as an adult. He drew a stick figure of a golfer and a green with a flag and wrote that he wanted to be a PGA Tour professional.
Skiing was in Keegan's DNA too. He started racing when he was about 6, and he was among the fastest downhill skiers in his age group in the state. He spent the winters at Suicide 6, a ski resort in Vermont's Green Mountains, and was a member of Woodstock High's ski team.
"When you're staring out at Vermont cold, the ice and wind and snow, and you're standing there in the starting gate, I don't think there's a scarier place in sports," Bradley told PGATour.com in 2019 . "There are no teammates. It's all you. It's all about your guts. You had to push yourself, almost to a dangerous line."
When Keegan was 13, he told his dad he wasn't sure he wanted to keep skiing because he didn't want to jeopardize his future PGA Tour career. After finishing third in the giant slalom at the state championships in March 2003, Keegan told his dad he was done.
"We skied to the bottom of that hill, and he never put them on again," Mark said.
BRADLEY'S PARENTS SPLIT up before his senior season of high school. Mark took an assistant teaching position at Hopkinton Country Club in Massachusetts, and he and Keegan lived in a 28-foot motor home during the summer of 2003. They called the RV "Tin Cup II" after the 1996 movie in which Kevin Costner played golf pro Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy.
They used communal showers, and Keegan slept on a table that converted into a bed that wasn't long enough for his tall frame. Keegan played golf during the day, and he and Mark shared stories around a campfire at night.
One day that summer, Keegan came back to the motor home after playing 36 holes at Hopkinton Country Club. He had befriended Jon Curran, one of the top junior golfers in the country.
"How'd you play?" Mark asked him.
"I played so great," Keegan told his dad. "I could hit it as hard as I could."
"Keegan, it sounds like you had a breakthrough," Mark said.
"No, Dad, this was freakish," Keegan said.
The next day, Mark enrolled Keegan in Hopkinton High School and found them an apartment in the school district. In October 2003, Keegan won the state Division 2 title by carding a 1-under 69. With Curran and Kimberly Donovan also playing well, the Hillers captured their first state team title with a 21-shot victory. Curran went on to play at Vanderbilt, while Donovan went to Duke.
"When Keegan first started out, all the other kids were traveling around the world," former Hopkinton High golf coach Dick Bliss said. "He didn't have that luxury. He had the passion, though. I mean, there was nobody that worked harder every day."
Keegan wanted to play college golf at Florida or Florida State, but those schools didn't think the up-and-comer from a cold-weather state could be that good. So, he chose to attend St. John's after Darby offered him a full scholarship. With only six or seven golfers on his roster, that was one of the enticements Darby used to get golfers to come to St. John's, which didn't have a practice facility or a home course.
"His freshman year, he was the best player on the team with the most talent," Darby said. "He was just a natural-born leader when he got there. We were still kind of putting that team together. When he came in, he was like a magnet. Other players followed him."
Including Zolotas, when they crossed Round Swamp Road nearly two decades ago.
"I think the story could have been a little bit sensationalized," Darby said. "It's not like they were dragged off the course in handcuffs. I heard there was a police officer there. Keegan was the perfect guy to coach because I never got mad at him. I might have gotten mad at him, but it would have been five years later because I never really found out."
Bradley saw Currier again at Bethpage Black on Monday and apologized for sharing their secret.
"I'm not on any social media, but I bet you I've had 100 people text me that clip when he keeps talking about how he got me in trouble," said Currier, who is now the superintendent at Glen Oaks Club on Long Island. "I told him if the state comes after me for back lost revenue, he's paying for it."
Bradley and his St. John's teammates shared a house near campus. It was more like a fraternity house, with freshmen sharing rooms. Pizza boxes and empty beer cans littered the floors, and cars were parked on the front lawn. Bradley and his teammates practiced together, played together and sometimes cut the end of their classes together to get to the course earlier.
"He leads by example," Ballo said. "He always led by example, especially in college. He practiced the hardest. He played the most, and he was the best player. So if you wanted to get to his level, you had to do the same. The entire team rises up when Keegan's in charge because he demands so much of himself, and he quietly makes it known that I demand this from you guys too, because I want us to be the best we can possibly be."
Bradley wanted to play every day while in college, and he expected his teammates to be there with him.
"I think the people of New England and the Northeast have a grit mindset to them," Bradley said. "I had such a finite time to practice golf. I grew up in Vermont, and we had really severe winters, and then Boston was actually going south. I could hit some shots later in the year. I had to capitalize on this time to hit balls, get ready to play, prepare to someday do this.
"As I got older and I was able to play year-round, I still had that mentality. I still have that mentality today [that] I can't waste a second of this day."
Bradley and his St. John's teammates, along with Curran, have had a text message chain going since 2006. It's called "Jup Life" because many of them moved to the Jupiter, Florida, area after college to try to make it to the PGA Tour.
Ballo played on the Web.com Tour during the 2013-14 season but failed to keep his card. He took a job as a valet at a golf club in southern Florida. When Bradley asked Ballo if he was playing in the PGA Tour Canada Q-school, Ballo told him he didn't have the money to sign up.
Bradley called him back two days later.
"Listen, I'm going to sign you up," Bradley said. "You can't quit now, there's no way. You have done nothing but get better every single year. You have an amazing game. I see how hard you're working. I can't let you stop now."
Bradley was in his fourth season on the PGA Tour and could afford to lend his friend the money. Ballo played competitive golf for another five seasons.
"If he didn't do that, I may not have played professional golf for six more months," Ballo said. "He didn't do it so he could tell people he'd helped me. He didn't do that for any reason other than I was one of his best friends and he knew how much I wanted it and how hard I was working. He knew I deserved an opportunity to keep going. That's the type of guy Keegan is."
Bradley's teammates from St. John's were part of the Ryder Cup opening ceremony. Curran and Bradley were the best man in each other's weddings, and Curran will be driving Bradley's cart this weekend.
Bradley never forgot his roots -- or those who helped him get to the PGA Tour.
"I think when you grow up in New England, whether you're trying to be a golfer or work, you want to get your job done, you want to be the best you can at your job," Bradley said. "I carry around the Northeast and New Englander with me everywhere I go. That's my identity. I love that I grew up there. I love that I'm a little bit different than the guys out here, and there's nothing I'm more proud of than representing that part of the world."
It wasn't as easy for Bradley to make friends on the PGA Tour, according to his father.
"Keegan's a very private person," Mark Bradley said. "He even says that he wasn't making friends with anybody when he first went out on tour. It wasn't that he was mean or he didn't like them. It was just, back in those days, he looked at every one of them as an opponent, almost an enemy. He just wanted to beat them, and so he kind of stuck to himself."
Not until after Bradley moved to South Florida about five or six years ago did he become close to U.S. stars such as Justin Thomas and others.
"Keegan would be the first to tell you he's always been kind of quiet, been to himself, and I think this captaincy has been the best thing that's happened to him," Thomas said. "It brought out a different side of him. We keep joking you have to talk to all of us and you can't just kind of hide from us anymore. You've got to hang out with us and whatnot."
Bradley said the past year has taught him that he can still be friends with his competitors -- even if he wants to beat their brains out on the course.
"I've told them this: I'm older than all of them but I look up to each and every one of them," Bradley said. "They're all extremely good people. I've learned so much from this group of players. They go about their career in a much different way than I did. They want to make friendships. They want to enjoy their time. They want to celebrate their friends when they play well.
"[That's] something that I've learned from each and every one of them that I'll take with me for the rest of my life."
THERE'S NO QUESTION Bradley's game is as good as almost anyone's. He won in each of the past four seasons on tour and is ranked No. 13 in the world. After Bradley finished first in the Travelers Championship on June 22, he seriously considered becoming the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer led the Americans to a 23-9 rout at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in 1963.
In the end, after Cameron Young, Sam Burns and Ben Griffin stepped up their games, Bradley didn't use one of his six captain's choices on himself.
Bradley told his father that while he was playing in the FedEx Cup playoffs, he spent too much time looking at scoreboards to see how others were playing instead of focusing on his own game.
"He was afraid that if he played, he'd be worrying and wondering what's going on with everybody else while he was playing, and felt like he would have been a bit of a liability," Mark Bradley said.
That doesn't mean Keegan Bradley hasn't thought about what he's missing out on this week. He has caught himself looking down the Black Course's fairways, where he played while at St. John's, and wondered what might have been.
"I catch myself every now and then looking down the fairway, seeing the guys walk down the fairway and think how badly I'd like to do that, and how badly I'd want to be in the group with Scottie Scheffler and seeing him play and being his teammate," Bradley said. "But I feel like I've been called for a bigger cause here, to help our guys get ready to play and play at the highest level.
"But in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking, 'I could have been out there.'"
Even on the holes across Round Swamp Road.