Keegan Bradley put an end to months of speculation on Wednesday by breaking his own heart. He’s betting that personal sacrifice is going to lead to Ryder Cup glory in a month’s time.
The American captain of the Ryder Cup team has spent the last year and a half getting ready for the end-of-September showdown at Bethpage Black on Long Island, figuring out how best to rally the USA’s top golfers to reclaim the biennial tournament from Team Europe. At the same time as performing his duties as Ryder Cup captain, Bradley has also put together one of the best seasons of his career, winning one tournament and finishing in the top 10 on six occasions. He ended the season tied for seventh in the FedEx Cup standings.
In any other year with any other captain holding the keys to the Ryder Cup, Bradley would be on the team. But in 2025, Bradley was the one making decisions and he had a historic one to make: Would he be the first playing captain for Team USA since Arnold Palmer in 1963?
That question followed Bradley all year and picked up steam when he won the Travelers Championship in June. The discussion went from the clubhouse all the way to the White House – President Donald Trump argued in favor of Bradley picking himself to be on the team in a recent social media post.
When he unveiled the team’s final player on Wednesday, Bradley paused for a moment and then announced Sam Burns would be the sixth and final captain’s pick for Team USA.
It was a decision that Bradley said he had made months ago. Even still, the two-time Ryder Cup participant still felt some familiar feelings earlier this week as it settled in that he would once again not be playing in one of the biggest highlights of the golf calendar.
“I grew up wanting to play Ryder Cups. I grew up wanting to be fight alongside these guys, and it broke my heart not to play. It really did because you work forever to make these teams but ultimately I was chosen to do a job,” Bradley told reporters. “I was chosen to be the captain of this team and my ultimate goal to start this whole thing was to be the best captain that I could be. And this is how I felt like I could do this. If we got to this point and I felt like the team was better with me on it, I was going to do that.
“I was going to do whatever I thought was best for this team, and I know 100% for certain that this is the right choice.”
He was left off the 2023 team in one of the most shocking omissions in that year’s tournament. He described himself as having an “obsession” with making the 2023 team he went into a period of reevaluation, wondering if his businesslike demeanor and lack of friends on tour had hurt his chances of receiving a call-up.
After Team USA lost the showdown against Team Europe in Rome, Bradley got another surprise – he was named captain for the 2025 edition back on home soil at one of the world’s most difficult golf courses. From the start, Bradley did not want to play and instead focus solely on his captain’s duties.
But his strong play forced him to reconsider that – for a time.
“I really, truly, felt this whole time that I needed to be the captain from the very start. And you know, my vice captains knew that. A lot of the players knew that,” he said. “And then, you know, when after Hartford, I sort of had to just back off that a little bit and be more open to the idea of playing, still with the idea that I really just wanted to be the captain. I really want to leave this process knowing I did everything I could as a captain, and I was worried if I played, I might not be able to do that.”
Keegan Bradley celebrates after winning the Travelers Championship in June. Bill Streicher/Imagn Images/Reuters
There’s a chance the 39-year-old Bradley won’t be chosen for another Ryder Cup team in the future. There’s a chance that the 2025 edition of the tournament might be the last time he’s ever playing well enough to be thought of as a shoo-in, either as an automatic qualifier or a captain’s pick. He may have missed his last chance to represent his country on the golf course and it was his own decision.
That is an incredible inspiration for the 12 men who make up the US Ryder Cup team, said Justin Thomas – one of Bradley’s captain’s picks who made the 2023 team in a surprising decision.
“I think all of us are gutted for him, but at the same time, I would say him leading us to victory will be cooler than any experience he could have as a player, and that’s probably what he feels like is best for us, and so we have all the faith in the world and we don’t doubt him for one second for that,” Thomas said
