Coming away from The Open at Royal Troon Dan Bradbury decided that enough was enough.
He had just shot 83-77 to miss the cut by 12 and had lost nearly five shots on the greens to the rest of the field. Of the 156 players in the field in Scotland Bradbury ranked 152nd.
That was when the 25-year-old made the switch to the long putter – a centre-shafted Ping PLD Oslo – and the Yorkshireman’s season began to turn around.
At Wentworth he closed with a 65 and at the French Open he posted rounds of 67-66-69-66 for his second win on the DP World Tour.
There were 19 birdies and eagle over the four days and he would finish the week at Le Golf National at the top end of the putting stats.
He ranked 11th for Strokes Gained: Putting and inside the top 20 for Putts per greens in regulation, putts per round and one putts. Over the four rounds there wasn’t a single three putt.
“I’ve been struggling for a while. I’m quite a stats-based player and I was pretty much losing a shot a round on the greens,” said Bradbury.
“I tried a lot of things, I got a putting coach and got Mike Kanski and that helped for a little bit, then it started getting worse again. I found a lot of things helped for a little while but nothing kind of kept improving.
“So yeah, this summer after The Open, I’d just had enough.
And just like that, @DanJBradbury joins Jeff Winther at -15 #FedExOpenDeFrance https://t.co/m4k6wrIXwX pic.twitter.com/kCFfUKo44x
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) October 13, 2024
“All the other putters are now just left at home and I was like, right, I’m just going to try it. What’s the worst that can happen? I had a bit of a stigma against using it, to be honest, but I’m glad I got over that.”
With the win Bradbury moved up 73 spots to 25th on the Race to Dubai rankings and, having spent much of the season, pondering trying to retain his card he can now look forward to the Tour Championship in Dubai.
There would be three straight birdies on the back nine which included a fortunate three at the 15th having just caught the edge of the green.
“It’s been a rough year, a very rough year. After the highs of last year and finishing so well, I wanted to push on this year and see what I could do, and luckily now I can do that,” he added.
“But up to this point it’s been a struggle. When I teed up at Wentworth, I was 100th in the rankings with lots of points available but I was far from safe.
“The goal was to make the cut so I don’t have to go to Korea and keep my card to be honest with you. To hear that sounds pretty good. I guess I’ll be looking at flights to Dubai then.”
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