NORTON, Mass. -- Keegan Bradley's Labor Day on Monday will be exactly that.
With a roller-coaster of a round Sunday at the Deutsche Bank Championship, where he shot 3-over-par 74 and is tied for 37th, Bradley pingponged much of the afternoon back and forth on the projected FedEx Cup points list.
First it appeared he would qualify for the BMW Championship in two weeks. Then it didn't. And after two birdies on his final two holes, he did again. Bradley eventually ended the day 68th in the standings.
Inside the top 70 after this week advances to the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club, where Bradley finished T-16 two years ago. Outside that mark and you get an earlier-than-expected offseason.
Bradley insists his main focus isn't on advancing.
"Obviously I'm not thinking about that too much," he said. "I want to try to win tournaments, so that's secondary. But I want to go shoot a good round [Monday], whether I make it or not."
One requirement to win, though, is that you have to be in the field.
The pride of Woodstock, Vermont, is always a fan-favorite here at TPC Boston. He had reached the Tour Championship -- in which only the top 30 move qualify -- in three straight years, from 2011 to 2013.
Bradley had played every BMW Championship during that stretch, too, but in 2014 he withdrew from the third leg of the playoffs after being unsure if a drop he took was legal. In order to protect the field, he said, he WD'd.
The result meant he finished 33rd and didn't reach the Tour Championship for the first time since he burst on to the PGA Tour scene with his victory at the 2011 PGA Championship.
As for his third round at TPC Boston, Bradley started off with a birdie, but a rough patch on the back nine, where he had two double-bogeys in three holes, derailed him quickly.
"I had some really, really bad breaks there," said Bradley, who owns three career PGA Tour wins, his last coming at the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. "But a couple worst of the year. ... There was a three-hole stretch where I couldn't believe it was happening. I plugged it in the bunker on 11. I had to take an unplayable. I couldn't find it for a while. And so I kind of hit it in the trees and it went up against this tree branch. I couldn't advance it. I tried and I couldn't. It was bizarre."
Those two finishing birdies, though, at least gave Bradley a shot to work his way into the next leg of the playoffs on Labor Day.
