Grand Slam of Golf: Keegan to score again

Keegan Bradley, can he defend his title?

Our man takes a look at tomorrow's four-man field event from Bermuda where he fancies Keegan Bradley to make a successful defence...

Tournament History and Format
The Grand Slam of Golf has been in existence since 1979. It's a relaxed event contested by the year's four major winners but as is the case again this year, there's usually at least one winner that doesn't turn up.

This time around two players have failed to make the line-up. PGA champ, Rory McIlroy, though you can't really blame him, will be in China defending his obscenely lucrative BMW Masters title and Open champ, Ernie Els has had to withdraw after injuring his ankle playing tennis with his daughter. Rory has been replaced by last year's winner, Keegan Bradley, and Padraig Harrington steps in at the last hour to replace the Big Easy.

The tournament is stroke play, held over two rounds, starting tomorrow afternoon and finishing on Wednesday.

Venue
Port Royal Golf Course, Southampton, Bermuda

Course Details
Par 71, 6845 yards

Port Royal has been the venue since 2009. It's a short, wind exposed Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed course, perched right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

Useful Sites
Event Site
Course Tour

TV Coverage
Three hours of recorded highlights will be shown tomorrow and Wednesday night at 9.00pm on Sky.

Last Five Winners
2011 - Keegan Bradley -4
2010 - Ernie Els -5
2009 - Lucas Glover - 11
2008 - Jim Furyk -4 (playoff)
2007 - Angel Cabrera -4 (playoff)

The Field

US Masters Champion - Bubba Watson 3.711/4
With an Official World Ranking of 7, 33 year-old Bubba is the highest ranked player in the line-up. His victory at Augusta secured his first major and his fourth PGA Tour title. The big-hitting lefty has a self-taught, easily-recognisable swing. He shapes every shot from left-to-right or right-to-left and when everything clicks he's a joy to watch but he hasn't been in the best of form of late, possibly distracted by the recent adoption of his baby son.

US Open Champion - Webb Simpson 3.711/4
World ranked number 8, 27 year-old Webb's career has taken off in a hurry. After two years settling in on the PGA Tour in 2009 and 2010, he took two titles late in the season last year and pushed Luke Donald right to the wire in the race to top the money-list. His US Open win in June was just his third win on tour but it won't be his last.

Alternate - Keegan Bradley 3.55/2
Ranked number 14th in the world, Keegan has a similar profile to Simpson. At 26, he's just a year younger and with three PGA Tour wins, including one major title -the 2011 PGA, he has the same number of wins. Like Simpson, he also uses a long putter. In fact, he was the first player to win a major using on. However, Keegan has had just two years on the PGA Tour, compared with Webb's four and he's just the third player in history to win a major at the first attempt. Up until this year, if an alternate was required, organisers invited the former major winner with the best overall finishes in that year's majors but they changed the rules this year and Keegan gets in as defending champ.

Alternate - Padraig Harrington 4.77/2
With second and third alternates, Graeme McDowell and Tiger Woods, both declining the chance to substitute injured Ernie, Padraig gets the chance to make it third time lucky. The Irishman was beaten in a playoff at both the 2007 and 2008 renewals but the world number 57 has looked a shadow of his former self of late and I can see him struggling.

Selection
There may only be four in the field but picking the winner is no easy task. All four players can handle the likely windy conditions and all four are obviously top-class. The three Americans are all playing for the first time since the Ryder Cup and I imagine the clubs were tossed to one side for a few days after Medinah so there is a slight risk that they could be a wee bit rusty but I still think they're a cut above Pod nowadays.

It's not an event to go mad on but given he's the defending champion and the only man in the field to have played the course before, Bradley gets my vote and at anything around 3.55/2, he's a fair price.

I'll be back again tomorrow with previews for the weeks other two events, the BMW Masters and the CIMB Classic.