Keegan Bradley leads BMW Championship tournament after Day 1 at 6-under

CASTLE ROCK — After being the last man to qualify for the BMW Championship with a No. 50 FedExCup ranking, bubble boy Keegan Bradley played like he had a new lease on life on Thursday.

The 38-year-old Vermont native carded a 66 to open the tournament at Castle Pines Golf Club, putting him in first place after one round of play. Should he stay on that pace — he’s currently projected to leap up to fourth in the rankings — he’ll be in the mix to win the BMW and advance with the top 30 players to next weekend’s Tour Championship.

After enduring “one of the toughest afternoons of my PGA Tour career” last Sunday as he anxiously waited to see if he’d make the top 50 and get a spot in the BMW, Bradley is playing with house money.

“It’s such a relief to be here,” Bradley said. “I just felt a lot calmer today. But I played really, really well.”

Bradley was bogey-free while notching six birdies. He started fast, with birdies on the par-5 first hole, par-4 second and the par-5 eighth. That last birdie featured an impressive chip out from the bunker on his third shot that stopped two feet from the hole.

That consistency carried over to the back nine, where he birdied the par-4 13th and par-5 14th and capped his round with a birdie (and fist pump after his ball sank on a tricky downhill, 10-foot putt) on the 18th.

En route to 6 under par, the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain hit 16 of 18 greens and 12 of 14 fairways. He also made a key par putt on the par-3 seventh hole to maintain the momentum of the lowest opening round of his year. This isn’t Bradley’s first time out front in the BMW Championship: He won the 2018 tournament in a playoff and also held an 18-hole lead at the 2022 rendition, only to collapse during the weekend to finish tied for 58th.

“The birdie on 18 was nice,” Bradley said. “I was pumped about that because I had a really tough putt. But on the seventh hole I ran a putt by about 10 feet and made it for par. Those are always the big ones.”

Another longtime PGA Tour mainstay also made noise on Thursday to put himself near the top of the leaderboard.

Adam Scott, one of two golfers this weekend to have also competed in The International at Castle Pines, carded a 4-under 68.

The 44-year-old Australian made his PGA Tour debut at Castle Pines in 2000 and missed the cut. But the veteran showed poise on Thursday with five birdies and shook off an early bogey on the par-4 third. He entered the tournament 41st in the rankings but is now projected to shoot up to 22nd, which would qualify him for next weekend.

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