Scheffler’s dominance doesn’t bother Bradley
While some golfers might enjoy the respite of playing an event without redhot Scottie Scheffler in the field, Keegan Bradley feels a triumph without the world’s best golfer present would leave something to be desired.
The seemingly invincible Scheffler has four wins and a runners-up finish in his past five starts – a run that includes a second Masters triumph – and is the first player since Tiger Woods in 200708 to have five consecutive top-two finishes.
Bradley, speaking to Reuters ahead of his title defence at the June 20-23 Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut, did not expect to see such dominance from Scheffler, a 10-times winner on the PGA Tour, so soon.
“It’s pretty remarkable. I don’t think anybody expected him to be this dominant, this fast,” world number 19 Bradley said in a video call from the Travelers Championship media day at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell.
“He’s playing tournaments and winning them easily every week and I can’t really say I’ve seen that since like when Tiger was at his peak.”
Scheffler’s wife is expecting their first child any day now and the 27-yearold American said at the Masters he was ready to walk away from the year’s first major “at a moment’s notice” if she went into labour.
While Scheffler’s absence at a tournament would surely open the door for a number of players, Bradley simply laughed when asked if he was hoping the baby’s due date was the week of his title defence at the Travelers, a PGA Tour signature event with a limited field and $20 million purse.
“They’re the two owners in the beginning that said, ‘Let’s start by giving you some young horses and see what we can do,’” Gargan said.
Beckman went to College of Charleston and took some classes at the University of Louisville without finding a profession he was passionate about.
It took him working on his mother’s farm in LaGrange to figure it out.
“I just kind of found this, this little spark of enthusiasm and it just kind of grew and the connection just got even deeper with the horses,” Beckman said. “It checked all the boxes for me.”
There’s one big box they’d all like to check off on Saturday.
Beckman and Cox have favorable posts. Honor Marie will go out of the No. 7 post beside Just a Touch at No. 8 and Encino at No. 9. Catching Freedom is at No. 4. Gargan got the dreaded bookend draws. Dornoch will have to overcome the misfortune of drawing the No. 1 post. The last horse to win from there was Ferdinand in 1986. Society Man is at the opposite end in No. 20.
The celebration if one of their horses brings it home would be worth the 150 year wait.
Given the luck needed to overcome the variables of the biggest field these horses have faced, it’s hard to have civic pride when only one of them can be called the winner. Once the horses are out of the gates, Louisville ties are set well aside. It’s every trainer for himself.
“I will tell you this, based off the last few derbies – we ran three two years ago and four last year – you gotta have the right one, not a bunch,” said Cox. “I always say there’s one Derby winner and 19 horses.”
Cox does hold the distinction of being a Derby-winning trainer. Mandaloun was awarded the win from the 2021 race after the Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit was disqualified for a failed drug test.
But Mandaloun wasn’t officially recognized as the winner until February 2022 – that’s a long way from the winner’s circle, the raising of the trophy, the bed of roses flanked over the horse and the smell of victory cigars being puffed.
Now imagine the scene on Saturday if one of those six horses trained by Louisville’s own crosses first with 160,000 fans screaming.