Bradley spends time with Storm mates

Keegan Bradley will be entitled to host the champions dinner at the PGA Championship next year, which will be quite cool. It will have to go some, though, to outdo the champions lunch he had on Monday. To celebrate his first major title, he got together with fellow St. John's alumni at New Park Pizza in Howard Beach.

"He hadn't been back to New York in a while, so I think he really wanted to have that pizza," said his buddy and former teammate Kevin Velardo, an assistant pro at Cherry Valley Club in Garden City, who was at the table. "We must have gone through seven pies in 15 minutes."

That was after he played 18 holes with Red Storm golfers, past and present, at Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury and roomed at the St. John's "Golf House" Sunday night. "We stayed up until 2 in the morning, telling stories, just talking about everything," said Casey Calmi, a mainstay in local pro tournaments who was a friend of Bradley even before they were teammates at St. John's.

It was part of Bradley's unique victory lap, after being an unlikely major champion at Atlanta Athletic Club 10 days ago; an amazing blur for a 25-year-old who was on campus only three years ago. "It's unbelievable. I'm still in shock, in a good way," said Calmi, who will try to qualify for the European Tour next month.

What was no shock to his old friends was the way Bradley has handled being a sudden celebrity and hot property. "He was not any different than he was in college," Velardo said. "It was cool to see. We all still went back and forth at each other."

Bradley said at a news conference Tuesday, "It's fun to go back and play with the guys -- there were three groups and I got to kind of stick around and [play with] every group. I had so much fun. It's more fun for me than it is for them. They probably all know that."

Calmi said that some of the St. John's undergraduates were a little starstruck, but his peers just saw the same old guy. They always knew he would make it on the PGA Tour, they just didn't realize he would do it so quickly.

As Bradley said Tuesday at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, N.J., "It wasn't that long ago when I was sitting in a house in Queens with 85 dollars in my bank account."

He will take another big step this week at The Barclays, the first phase of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Thursday and Friday, he will play alongside his mentor Phil Mickelson. "It's going to be fun to have a big crowd to show my buddies who come out from St. John's University," said the PGA champ who will have more than a few people rooting for him, too.