Captain Keegan Bradley does not pick himself for 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team
Let the second-guessing begin.
U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley rounded out his 12-man lineup for the 45th Ryder Cup on Wednesday morning and elected not to pick himself as one of his six captain’s picks.
“The decision was made a while ago that I wasn’t playing,” Bradley said. “The last 48 hours, we had the team set. We weren’t scrambling at all. This was a really tough decision. I will say, there was a point where I was playing. All these guys stepped up in a major way and played their way on to this team.”
Bradley, 39, could have been the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. Bradley, who made the announcement during a press conference from the PGA of America’s headquarters in Frisco, Texas, named Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Sam Burns, the latter three all falling outside the top 12 in the U.S. Ryder Cup point standings, to a team that included automatic qualifiers Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, Harris English and Bryson DeChambeau.
Left off the team were three players inside the top 12 in the final points standings: No. 10 Maverick McNealy, No. 11 Bradley and No. 12 Brian Harman.
When Bradley was announced as captain in July 2024, he declared that he wouldn’t choose himself if he didn’t qualify for the team on points. But that was before he won the BMW Championship a month later, one of three FedEx Cup playoff events. Bradley opened the door to using one of his captain’s picks on himself as he enjoyed one of the finest seasons of his career and ranked among not just the top 12 Americans but the top 12 in the world. After winning the Travelers Championship in June, he said, “This changes the story a little bit.”
Bradley’s game cooled off after his win in his next four starts before finishing T-17 in his defense of the BMW Championship and T-7 at the Tour Championship on Sunday.
“To be honest, I feel like I’m still one of the best players in the world,” he said last week. “I figured the likelihood of being completely out of the picture was probably pretty slim. We’ve been preparing for this since then. It would be easier if I was top six or way out of it.”
European Ryder Cup stalwart Rory McIlroy offered one explanation why he deemed Bradley one of America’s 12 best players but believed said the job of captain has become too big for one person to do both given all the meetings with assistants and press conferences to juggle.
“The captain isn’t going to be on the course all day, so really the captain’s only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday,” McIlroy said. “Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well?”
“I’m going to be defined by this decision,” Bradley said on Sunday. “The only thing I care about is on Sunday of the Ryder Cup, that we win the Ryder Cup. Then I’ll know I made the right decision.”
Until then, let the second-guessing begin.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ryder Cup: Captain Keegan Bradley did not pick himself to play
