Either way, Keegan Bradley was going to shock the golf world with his final decision on whether he would select himself as one of his six captains picks for the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team … or leave himself off the team despite playing the best golf of his career this year.
The envelope please …
Bradley is out … as a player.
He’ll serve as only the captain of the team, an honor bestowed upon him 13 months ago by the PGA of America. But not as one of the 12 players, which was highly speculated entering Wednesday’s anticipated announcement of his six captains picks.
Bradley said the decision was made “a while ago.”
Bradley, 39, instead picked six players that do not include himself in what has been the most highly- anticipated captains picks in memory. Here they are:
Here are the rest of Bradley’s captain’s picks — in what has been the most anticipated captains picks in memory:
• Justin Thomas, who’s seventh on the points list and will play in his third Ryder Cup.
• Collin Morikawa, eighth on the points list and playing in the matches for a third time, having gone 3-0-1 in 2021 on home soil and 1-3 in 2023 in Rome.
• Ben Griffin, ninth in points and who’s had a career year and will be playing in his first Ryder Cup.
• Cameron Young, who was 14th on the points list and will play in his first Ryder Cup. The Westchester native is one of the hottest players in the game right now, having won the Wyndham a month ago and with Fed-Ex-Cup Playoff finishes of 5th, T-11 and T-4 at the Tour Championship. He, too, won the New York State Open at Bethpage Black in 2017 as an amateur.
• Patrick Cantlay, who was 15th in points but has come on strong of late with a T-2 at the Tour Championship last week and who partners well with his best friend, Xander Shauffele.
• Sam Burns, 16th on the points list, but an excellent putter who just had a strong finish in the FedExCup Playoffs with a T-4 at the BMW and a T-7 at the Tour Championship and is close friends with Scheffler.
Those six captains picks join the six players who qualified automatically on points — Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Schauffele, Russell Henley, Harris English and Bryson DeChambeau.
Brian Harman, Maverick McNealy and Chris Gotterup were the other players up for consideration that did not quite make the cut.
Had Bradley played, he would have been the first playing captain for a U.S. Ryder Cup team since Arnold Palmer did it in 1963, helping to lead the Americans to victory.
Bradley, who’s played in two Ryder Cups (in 2012 at Medinah, where he famously paired with Phil Mickelson and went 3-1 as a rookie, and in 2014 at Gleneagles in a U.S. loss, going 1-2), said before making these picks official this was the most difficult decision he’s ever made in his life.
Leaving himself off for what he believes is the good of the team surely must have been gut-wrenching for Bradley considering how well he’s played this year. He relied heavily on his vice captains, Jim Furyk, Brandt Snedeker, Webb Simpson, Gary Woodland and Kevin Kisner when deliberating on this momentous decision.
Bradley has played in 21 PGA Tour events this year, winning the Travelers Championship in June and amassing six top-10s. After his play had tailed off some after the Travelers, he put a cap on his season with a tie for seventh in the Tour Championship.
Bradley, as was well chronicled, was controversially left off the 2023 team despite finishing 11th on the points list, when then-captain Zach Johnson opted to bring players with whom he was more familiar to Rome, where the U.S. was routed by Europe, 16 ½ to 11 ½.
He was very transparent in an episode of the Netflix series “Full Swing’’ about how gutted he was to be left off the team.
Based on merit of play and his 11th spot on the points list, Bradley deserved to be a player on this team. His reasoning has always been what he felt would be best for the team.
“It’s going to be controversial either side,’’ Bradley said after the Tour Championship referring to whether or not to pick himself. “There is no right decision here. The right decision is if we win on Sunday and that’s all I care about.”
