Being in the spotlight is not uncommon for the 8x PGA Tour winner Keegan Bradley. The Travelers Championship win, Ryder Cup captaincy, and Skins Game win are some of the many times he has embraced the spotlight. However, this time he is under the microscope for something he has been previously criticized for \u2013 his beloved AimPoint putting technique.<\/p>\n
Rick Golfs shared an X post and wrote, \u201cOkay. I know I bring up Aimpoint too often. But this is horrific! It\u2019s one thing when it\u2019s a player. This is player and caddie. Do we really need 2 people stomping all over to read a putt!? Please watch this and defend it. Please try and tell me this is good for golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post features Bradley and his caddie both trying to read the putt with AimPoint at the season opener, the 2026 Sony Open in Hawaii. Notably, he loves the technique and uses it a lot of times. However, he is not the only one as many others, including Dustin Johnson<\/a><\/strong>, Collin Morikawa, Lydia Ko<\/a><\/strong>, and Rose Zhang<\/a><\/strong>, use it and advocate for it. In fact, the 8x PGA Tour winner also credited it for his performance at the 2023 Travelers Championship.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cWith AimPoint and the way I putt, bentgrass is especially nice with this style,\u201d Keegan Bradley said.<\/p>\n While many professionals use the putting technique frequently, it is rather controversial. The American Ryder Cup captain\u2019s clips of using the technique have already drawn a lot of criticism. For instance, he took over a minute for a 4-footer putt<\/a> at the 2025 Rocket Mortgage Classic. The same happened at the 2025 Tour Championship, where he took 51 seconds on a 5-footer putt.<\/p>\n Another clip of him came from the 2022 WGC-Match Play. He took almost a minute using the technique, but ended up missing a six-footer putt. There was another similar incident at the 2025 Hero World Challenge. A 39-second clip surfaced on X<\/a>, featuring Bradley implementing the technique for a small-distance putt. The clip prompted fans to urge the <\/a>management to ban<\/a> the practice. Fans called out the technique for slowing down the game.<\/p>\n This time, the 2025 Travelers Championship winner took it a step further by inviting his caddie to do the same, and the reactions are the same.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cBan aim point. That\u2019s it,\u201d one user wrote, while the other echoed similar feelings by writing, \u201cI\u2019ve reached the point where I root against any player that does this aim point bullshit. So unnecessary and maddening!\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the fans, though; many professionals and golf analysts have also called for a ban on Keegan Bradley\u2019s beloved putting technique. Lucas Glover is one of the most vocal critics of the method. The 2009 US Open champion has publicly called for a ban on it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of rude to be up near the hole and stomping around,\u201d Glover said about AimPoint on the SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio.<\/p>\n Additionally, he claimed that the technique has not statistically improved anyone\u2019s putting accuracy, while only contributing to the slow pace of the game. CBS analyst Jim Nantz also has similar feelings<\/a>. He said he \u201ccan\u2019t stand\u201d AimPoint, calling it the element of modern golf he dislikes most. Even Paige Spiranac criticized the putting technique.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Although fans criticize the technique, the bigger question is whether it has helped Keegan Bradley improve his putting.<\/p>\n Keegan Bradley\u2019s putting shift<\/p>\n Keegan Bradley struggled with the flatstick. He often ranked outside the top 150 in Strokes Gained: Putting (SG:P) on the PGA Tour. In the 2020\u201321 season, he averaged negative SG:P, with poor proximity and high putts per round, despite elite ball-striking. His rank was 186th in SG:P, with a score of -.548.<\/p>\n He then switched to an Odyssey Jailbird mallet and the AimPoint green-reading technique. The 8x PGA Tour winner reportedly started using the method in 2022. While his putting stats didn\u2019t skyrocket immediately, the results started showing up. During the 2021-2022 season, he scored 0.67 on SG:P and ranked 88th on the PGA Tour. But it finally reached its peak during the 2022-2023 season.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The American professional finished the 2022-2023 season ranking 20th in SG:P. He finished the season with a score of 0.447. However, his consistency has dropped since then. Bradley is again ranking lower. During the 2024 season, he was ranked 125th, which improved slightly to 114th in 2025.<\/p>\n Whether AimPoint remains a fixture in Keegan Bradley\u2019s routine or becomes the focus of stricter oversight, the numbers show a clear turning point in his putting since the method came into the picture. But will he be able to achieve the same success he saw in the 2022-2023 season?<\/p>\n The post Keegan Bradley in Hot Seat Yet Again for Using Controversial Green-Reading Method at PGA Tour Opener<\/a> appeared first on EssentiallySports<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being in the spotlight is not uncommon for the 8x PGA Tour winner Keegan Bradley. The Travelers Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":522051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[232249,90145,1430,1509,1456,62,174425,6993,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-522050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-aimpoint","9":"tag-east-lake-golf-club","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-keegan-bradley","12":"tag-pga-tour","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-technique","15":"tag-travelers-championship","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115908791674285858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}