BROOKLINE, Mass. — Typically, Keegan Bradley said, he’s used to being the guy in the bleachers.
Bradley is as New England as it gets. He grew up in Woodstock, Vt. and went to high school in Hopkinton, Mass. He bleeds Red Sox red and he spent his childhood obsessing over Bruins and Celtics and Pats and Sox. The names of the guys he used to cheer for from the bleachers — Trot Nixon and Kevin Millar and Troy O’Leary and more — roll off his tongue. He lights up at the very mention of Tom Brady.
But on Saturday, he was the man in the arena. And as he made the walk up the 18th fairway, there were the packed bleachers, left and right, fans on their feet.
KEE-GAN! KEE-GAN! KEE-GAN!
“Honestly, it was one of the most amazing moments of my entire life,” Bradley said some half-hour after he’d finished. There was a slight tremble in his voice as he said it. “I got to feel what it feels like to play in Fenway, to play in the Garden, to play in Gillette Stadium. I felt like a Boston player there.