Here's How Close Keegan Bradley Came to Being a Ryder Cup Playing Captain

NAPA, Calif. — Keegan Bradley has settled into his role as U.S. Ryder Cup captain, his golf clubs at home in Florida and his urge to play alongside those he will lead two in weeks at Bethpage Back, at least, tempered.

Bradley has acknowledged how much he wanted to play on a team he’s tried so hard to make over the years. Those close to him were well aware of that struggle.

How close did it come to happening?

It appears the possibility was quite real—until some of the players who were ultimately picked gave both Bradley and his vice captains the comfort to know that the team would be just as good without him.

“We kept telling Keegan, you’re not making this easy on us,” says Gary Woodland, one of Bradley’s five vice captains who is playing at this week's Procore Championship. “Being part of this process for the last three months, I don’t know how he played the way he did. It's one of the most remarkable things. Maybe Tiger could have done it. But I just don’t know if anybody could have played the way he played with everything he’s had on his plate.

“And then he wins Travelers, that threw a wrinkle in everything. He’s beating the best players in the world stressed out of his mind with all this stuff. At the end of the day, we kept telling him he can’t make the wrong decision.

“But him not playing is one of the most selfless acts I’ve seen in this game. I’ve known Keegan for 15 years, I know how much this means to him. We travel together a lot. It’s all he talks about—the team. That’s it. And knowing he’s good enough, 11th in the world, knowing he knows that course, it fits him. He’s poured his heart and soul and into this. I think it’s unbelievable.”

Bradley, 39, was famously left off the 2023 team that lost decisively to Europe in Rome. He played on the 2012 and 2014 teams and went 4-3-1 as the U.S. lost both matches. Whether or not he would have made a difference in 2023 is, of course, the stuff of considerable conjecture.

The U.S. lost 16 ½ to 11 ½. It went 1-7 in foursomes—a format Bradley was unlikely to play. It’s best player, Scottie Scheffer, went 0-2-2.

But the handling of Bradley, which became more widely-known from a Netflix documentary, led to plenty of second-guessing.

The Support for Bradley as Playing Captain

And then he was surprisingly named the U.S. captain in July of 2024. He won the BMW Championship after barely qualifying for the FedEx Cup playoff event.

This year, he had six top-10 finishes, including his victory at the Travelers Championship in June.

And he is ranked 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking, meaning he is ahead of five players on his team and nine on the European side.

“When he won Travelers, it seemed hard to imagine a 12-man Ryder Cup team without him on it,” says Webb Simpson, another vice captain. “He still played great golf. But a few guys played really well at the end of the year. Cam Young. Ben Griffin kept playing well. I think looking back, he’ll remember it as a really hard but the right decision.”

Simpson said he never specifically advised Bradley on whether or not to play.

But Simpson attended a function in conjunction with the Tour Championship in Atlanta and came away moved by how other players on the team were backing Bradley is he chose to play.

“Internally the support that these players have for him is unreal,” Simpson said. “I’m not surprised. I told my wife, it’s got to be a good feeling knowing your players are looking at you saying we want you to play because we think we’re one of the best players in the world. But we trust you as captain. Could it get any better?”

There will be many who wonder if the U.S. team is better off with Bradley on it.

But clearly, the noise surrounding him playing would be intense. The Ryder Cup begins on Sept. 26 and there will be four days of a news conferences leading up to it. You can almost guarantee that on each of those days, Bradley would be confronted with some question, some possible distraction, centering around his own play on the team.

Patrick Cantlay, who plays often with Bradley at home in Florida, said he never discussed the situation with him away from the course.

But Cantlay made it clear a few weeks ago and again this week he’d have had no problem with Bradley playing.

“I think he’s one of the best players in the world and if I was captain I’d have taken him to be on the team,” Cantlay said. “I know for sure the 12 guys have respect for him and he’s earned it. He has a lot of responsibilities that week. Balancing the two would have been incredibly difficult. He’s going to have a lot on his plate.

“I knew it was a decision that was weighing on him and I’m not sure there was a right answer. But I wasn’t surprised. Being the captain and the amount of responsibility he has that week is a tall order. I think he could do it. But it would be a challenge.”

The Last Ryder Cup Playing Captain

Bradley was unaware of the circumstances behind the last U.S. playing captain at the Ryder Cup—Arnold Palmer in 1963. He marveled when he learned that Palmer was appointed captain after a team vote just a few months prior to the event at East Lake in Atlanta—after team was already determined.

Palmer played all six matches. The U.S. won easily. The Ryder Cup was a far different deal.

Bradley, for example, was considered to have been chosen late for the role and it was still made 14 months in advance of the event.

There was plenty of reason to believe that Jim Furyk could have shouldered some of the responsibilities of the captain if Bradley elected to play.

Furyk is involved with the U.S. Ryder Cup effort for the 14th consecutive match, dating to his first appearance as a player in 1997. He played in nine Ryder Cups, was an assistant three times and was also the captain in 2018. Last year Furyk was the winning U.S. Presidents Cup captain.

“I don’t’ believe I ever told him that he should or should not play,” Furyk said. “I just tried to lay out what it would look like on both sides. And that goes into the responsibilities before the week of, responsibilities throughout the practice rounds, responsibilities during the tournament. I tried to be very clear and lay out what the week would be like. He’s the captain. His team. It’s obviously his team. And the five of us were going to support him either way you look at it.”

Furyk said that Bradley was confronted with a difficult decision.

“It would have given us a lot more responsibility,” he said about the assistants, including himself, Woodland, Simpson, Brandt Snedker (next year’s Presidents Cup captain) and Kevin Kisner. “It’s his team so I don’t want to project. I get the order and I’m here to help. The five of us would have had to take on more responsibility.

“The difficult part is how would you like to spend the last 14 months every waking moment he’s thought about getting ready for the Ryder Cup? He’s put together a plan. How he got his players. He’s formulating it all. It’s hard to hand that playbook over to someone else. You want to carry it out. And you know what, he's busted his ass this whole time. He deserves to do that.”

Furyk added Bradley’s greatest asset to the team may still be forthcoming.

“I’d like to think that story is unwritten,” Furyk said. “He’s going to make some incredible moves and do some incredible things during the week and at the end of the week the team is going to say that is part of the puzzle.”