Bradley Makes His Captaincy Case
Still in shock, the two-time Ryder Cupper confirms he was never interviewed for the role and announces hopes of making the team on qualifying points.
The PGA of America’s press conference introducing Keegan Bradley as 2025 Ryder Cup Captain was served up on a platter just as connoisseurs of post-USA losses would expect, with generous side helpings of Youth Desperation Syndrome and fuzzy rationales via the selection committee chefs.
The USA is no stranger to bold reactions after losses and Bradley’s appointment makes perfect sense given the fiasco Rome’s Ryder Cup appeared to be for the red-white-and-blue. Even though he was erroneously overlooked for a deserving Captain’s pick by Zach Johnson and the analytics braintrust, Bradley seems to has already fallen in line with the player-first, no-one-over-40-understands-what-we-go-through mindset which, not coincidentally, has the PGA Tour in quite a pickle these days.
Understandable of an appointment still so raw—all of two weeks—Bradley’s leading thought centered around appointing younger Vice Captains and bringing energy to the team room based on his passion for representing the United States.
Here are highlights from the session in case you want to know what was said in those first nine minutes when Golf Channel went audio-free from their NBC Sports set in Stamford and at the actual press conference. Such a nice tech follow- up to yesterday’s accidental reveal by an NBC feed.
Bradley conveyed continued shock just two weeks after he received no advance warning that he was under consideration and less than a year after Johnson passed him over.
“I didn't have one conversation with anybody about this until I was told I was the captain. I got a call from Seth and John and Zach and I had trouble talking -- when they called me I felt funny after the call because I don't think I reacted in the way that they were expecting me to. I was in complete shock. It was heavy.”
Bradley confirmed the call came Sunday night of the Travelers Championship.
The committee remained intact despite PGA CEO Seth Waugh’s impending departure. The vote was unanimous by the group including Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Don Rea, John Lindert and Waugh who had yet to leave his position. Waugh was seated in the audience for Bradley’s announcement.