Merced Match Play Meltdown! Keegan Fumes For His Man!

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We saw how cranky he was yesterday and Keegan Bradley's temper got the best of him in a wickedly entertaining WGC Cadillac Match Play meltdown with opponent Miguel Angel Jimenez. It seems Bradley has just been playing stroke play way too long and forgot that his opponent very much has the right to question a drop. Keegan's caddie didn't see it that way, was told to shut up, and Keegan went ballistic.

From Rex Hoggard's GolfChannel.com report on Jimenez's 2 up win.

After hitting his drive left of the 18th fairway and over a fence that had been deemed a temporary immovable obstruction, which would allow for a free drop, Bradley consulted with a rules official and was in the process of taking two drops – the first away from the fence and then off a cart path – when Jimenez walked over and insisted he was taking an incorrect drop.

After a heated exchange involving Bradley, his caddie Steve “Pepsi” Hale and the Spaniard, Jimenez told Hale to “shut up” and the situation escalated with Bradley and Jimenez going nose to nose.

“I felt like he was being disrespectful not only to me but my caddie,” Bradley said. “I was kind of standing up for my boy here.”

Unfortunately, Jimenez was well within his rights to question the drop as the PGA Tour's Mark Russell said after the round. And future Ryder Cuppers from Europe now know to get Keegan to unravel.

GolfDigest.com's Steve Hennessey posts a nice Vine with great audio of the first encounter (also posted below for the ease of the PGA Tour Censorship Department).

A rules official was over with the group as Bradley and his caddie Steve (Pepsi) Hale was explaining their drop -- but Jimenez was not happy. Golf Channel's Steve Sands reported that Jimenez's ball was 40 yards farther down the fairway when Jimenez walked back to Bradley. When Hale said something to Jimenez, it sounded like Jimenez told Hale to "shut up," which prompted Bradley to get in The Mechanic's face.

Bradley kept saying "You need to go back to your ball!" It looked like someone was about to push the other.

Bob Harig says the two lovebirds had another chat in the locker room post-round but no one was allowed to witness. Harig did, however, report this from Bradley's caddie, who didn't like the opponent in the match questioning a drop.

"Keegan was getting a little frustrated with that, and he had a right to be,'' Hale said. "We have a rules official with and he decides to interject himself on the ruling again. He questioned the drop again, questioned the rules official. It's clearly escalating.

"I don't understand why a player wants to interject himself into a situation when a rules official is right there. And he doesn't have to talk to Keegan about it.''

Because it's match play and he's allowed to do that?

Brian Wacker reports that the spat continued in Harding's locker room and shared this from the PGA Tour's Mark Russell:

“These guys are all Type-A personalities and competitors, and there’s a lot on the line, they’ve got a lot of pride and they had a little confrontation out there,” said PGA TOUR Vice President of Rules and Competitions Mark Russell. “It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last. You think one of those guys wants to lose to the other? Absolutely not.

"It doesn’t make it OK. It's a gentleman's game, but from time to time things get heated in this game. It's unfortunate that it happened."

Bradley did apologize for his behavior in some post round reports.This from golf.com's report by Josh Berhow:

“It was just a heat-of-the-moment thing," Bradley told reporters afterward. "It was disappointing. I'm pretty bummed out about it. It was just ... I had a ruling and he felt like he needed to intervene and I felt like he was being inappropriate to me and my caddie.

Here is Golf Central's coverage, helmed by Todd Lewis and including the parking lot interview.

Here is the Golf Channel post game chat with Burr, Tilghman, Chamblee and Duval. The nine minutes includes Mark Russell's interview.

After the round Bradley was seen being comforted by his dog, who appeared to have been left in his car by itself. This prompted many on social media to wonder if Bradley had left his "purse dog" in the car during the round.

The PGA Tour posted this part of the telecast:


Enjoy these while you can...first the incident followed by the 18th green handshake.