Keegan Bradley has shot up the golf awareness ladder. He hits it long, has a great touch around the greens and can pull off the pressure shot. He said, “That shot out of the bunker on 10 (the 2nd playoff hole at Riviera) was the best shot of my life.” Bradley also barely missed to winning putts.

Bradley plays a first round match against Geoff Oglivy today at 1:15 EST.

Golf Digest’s Jamie Diaz believes Bradley could be the next great young gun.

Rory McIlroy has yet to prove he will be a prolific winner. We’ve also had to temper the projections of major winners Martin Kaymer and Charl Schwartzel. In America, former sure things Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Anthony Kim have been moved to a “show me” state. There’s even a grudging wait-and-see adjustment toward Matteo Manassero, Ryo Ishikawa and, despite their precociousness, Patrick Cantlay and Bud Cauley.

At the risk of committing a coronation of my own, the young guy who most intrigues me is 25-year-old Keegan Bradley. Since his win at the PGA, he has gotten plenty of exposure throwing out first pitches, dropping pucks and tossing coins for his beloved New England professional teams. Though his glamorization is in full force, Bradley resists by retaining a self-image of the underdog out of St. John’s who had to run the gantlet of the Hooters Tour, Q school and the Nationwide Tour before eking his way onto the PGA Tour in 2011. “The biggest thing for me is to continue to be hungry,” he says.

“Keegan has a nice personality, a nice way about himself, and he likes people,” instructor Jim McLean says. “But the thing about him that sticks out is that he is really tough.”

The quality resonates with McLean, who didn’t fulfill his great promise as a young player. “At Houston I roomed with Bill Rogers and John Mahaffey, and I played a lot with Lanny Wadkins. Those guys were tough, much tougher than I was. Keegan knows what it’s like to have hardly any money left, to pull himself up after being knocked down. It’s not the typical experience of so many of today’s young players, and it’s an advantage. He likes it when the big moment comes. That’s actually a rare thing, and a big part of the puzzle of being really good. Another part is realizing the puzzle has a lot of pieces.”

This from George Coetzee who plays against Tiger Woods…

“If you think about tennis,” said South Africa’s George Coetzee, who will play the Gary Player bracket’s top seed, Rory McIlroy, “Rafael Nadal is not going to lose a first-round match. In golf you can’t say it’s the same, because anybody can beat anybody on any given day.”

Other notable notes…

The official number one, Luke Donald, is coming off a final-round 78 and a tie for 56th place at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera. He missed the cut there last year but heated up at the Accenture and, after too many top-10 finishes but not nearly enough victories, picked up his first Tour win in five years at chilly Dove Mountain. That gave the No. 1 ranking to … Accenture runner-up Martin Kaymer, he of the black-and-white neck buff. (Donald climbed from ninth to third.)    

It’s crowded at the top. For only the second time, three of the top four seeds at the Accenture are current or former No. 1s. If McIlroy, who is 5-3 in three Accenture starts, wins the tournament, and Donald fails to reach the third round, then McIlroy will ascend to No. 1 for the first time in his career. Aside from winning last summer’s U.S. Open, his record recalls Donald’s résumé before winning the Accenture: a bunch of top-five finishes, but not all that many top-one finishes.

Similarly, if the winner is Lee Westwood — who has never gotten past the second round in 11 starts, and who plays Nicolas Colsaerts in round one — then Westwood would take over No. 1 for the third time in his career if Donald doesn’t reach the quarterfinals.

Among the players who have come out of nowhere to win are Jeff Maggert, at the first Accenture in 1999, and Kevin Sutherland  in 2002.

J.B. Holmes had Woods all but beat — the Kentucky bomber was 3 up with five holes to play in their opening-round match in 2008. Then Woods won four straight holes with three birdies and a 35-foot eagle putt; if you’ve logged onto pgatour.com anytime in the last four years, you’ve probably seen a picture of the ensuing fist pump.

Woods (32-8 in 11 starts) went on to win the Accenture for the third time, thumping Stewart Cink 8 and 7 in the final match.  

Gritty Keegan Bradley, who is coming off a playoff loss at Riviera, versus first-round opponent Geoff Ogilvy, the Accenture winner in 2006 and ’09, and a finalist in ’07? There are a record 24 players under 30 in the field of 64. Who wins the battle of youth versus experience? And in a year that will see the Ryder Cup come to Chicago in September, who wins the inevitable Yank versus Euro matches?

Here are the tee times for today’s opening Accenture Match Play round. All are EST.

There are 22 Americans but that will dwindle quickly as 7 matches pit U.S. players.

Tiger Woods tees off at 12:35 vs Spain’s Gonzalo Fdez-Castano.

Luke Donald and Ernie Els go off at 2:05. Els is attempting to avoid another first round loss (he has 5 in 11 attempts).

Rory McIlroy and George Coetzee (S. Africa) tee off at 2:35.

Adam Scott and Robert Rock begin at 11:25.

Should be fun. GolfChannel beings broadcasting at 11:00.

Spanish golfer Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano sounds off on playing Tiger Woods. Remember when Stephen Aames once said Tiger was “beatable” before getting pummeled 9 and 8.

“I’m the underdog,” said Fernandez-Castano, a five-time European Tour winner ranked 48th in the world. “I have nothing to lose, and at the same time, I don’t think he’s at his best, so it’s a good opportunity . . . I think he’s beatable. Of course, I need to play good.”

“What I’m sure about is he’s not going to be as dominant as what he used to be,” Fernandez-Castano said. “I think there are a lot of young guys, like Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, Rickie Fowler, guys that have beaten him. They know the feeling of beating Tiger.

I’m more intrigued by Woods’ playing response. Old Tiger would use the slam for severe motivation and revenge. The new Tiger?

Talk about your reverse bifurcation. Tour commish Tim Finchem believes us hacks play to slowly–yet doesn’t address our snail Tour leaders.

On the participation side of the sport, “it’s a little bit challenging,” Finchem said. Recreational players are less likely to invest four or five hours in a round of golf than they were decades ago.

“For golf facilities, it puts some pressure on them,” Finchem said. He advocates a faster pace of play among amateurs.

Doesn’t he crealize we’ll copy anything the pros do to supposedly benefit our games? Its just another head-in-the-sand comment from Commissioner Ostrich.

Keegan Bradley has game. Superlative game. Came within a couple of missed-by-an-eyelash putts to win the Northern Trust. But somewhere he’s developed a fidgety pre-shot routine habit and overactive salivary glands. Copious spitting. Which brought out the PC police.

So much, that he felt the need to Tweet the message above. While the fidgeting is maddening, I don’t necessarily have problems with spitting on a golf course (except on the putting greens). Hell, guys wiz on courses all the time. But the TV screen outed him as a incessant loogie factory. So, in crunch time, will he refrain even if it hurts his game? I’ll bet not…nor would any of us if it helped us to win.

Tomorrow begins one of the best/worst non-major weeks of the Tour season. Match play. Like March Madness, the first two days are the best. Tons of golf action, lots of upsets and TV execs reaching for the antacids. For there are far too many high seeds losing far too early. You’re more apt to endure a Robert Karlsson/Bae Sang-moon final as a Rory McIlroy/Adam Scott tussle.

Anyway, Phil Mickelson is taking a week off after 5 straight weeks of play. The top-4 seeds are all Euros–how is Martin Kaymer #4?

Tiger Woods is seeded 19th (first time ever not ranked as a top-3 seed) and will play Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano of Spain.

My pick to win the whole shebang? Who knows…I haven’t correctly chosen the final pairing in quite a while. I will make a bold prediction that Ernie Els leaves quickly. He’s lost a first round match five times in 11 appearances.

Finally, the Americans are vying to tie a record of winning the first 8 Tour events–last done in 2001. There are 22 U.S. players in the event.