Keegan Bradley was so nearly the captain who oversaw perhaps the greatest comeback in sporting history on Sunday with Team USA producing a stunning performance in the singles at the Ryder Cup.
Team USA were completely outplayed over the first two days at the Ryder Cup. Europe found themselves seven points clear heading into Sunday at Bethpage.
At that stage, the question was whether Luke Donald‘s men would set a new record for the largest winning margin since 1979.
They very nearly lost on the final day, with Team USA losing just one of the singles matches. And who knows what would have happened in the last few games had Shane Lowry not holed the putt to retain the cup.
It meant that the final score was 15-13. And suddenly, all of the decisions Bradley made during his time as captain came under the microscope with the margins so small.
Keegan Bradley will rue a number of decisions after Team USA lose the Ryder Cup
Bradley admitted the course setup was a mistake, with Bethpage providing an underwhelming stage for the game’s greatest event.
The rough was cut back, while the greens offered few challenges for the best players on the planet.
Meanwhile, Bradley putting his faith in Collin Morikawa and Harris English in two foursomes sessions was baffling.
It became even more perplexing when it turned out that English – who finished second at two majors in 2025 and automatically qualified – was the player Bradley nominated to sit out the singles in the event of an injury.
But it is another call that will perhaps now haunt Bradley for the rest of his career.
Of course, so much of the talk in the months leading up to the Ryder Cup concerned whether Bradley would end up playing on his own team in New York.
After he won the Travelers Championship, it seemed a certainty. But by the time he briefly contended at East Lake, it seemed that Bradley had decided to leave himself out.
Indeed, the 39-year-old opted for Justin Thomas, Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Sam Burns.
Young was a revelation at Bethpage, and Thomas played his part with two points from four matches, including beating Tommy Fleetwood on Sunday. But the other four won two matches between them all week.
In fairness to Griffin, he only played twice. But Burns reminded everyone why he was barely in the Ryder Cup conversation for most of the year, while the only thing that was icy about Cantlay was his putter.
Keegan Bradley will now have to come to terms with the fact he’ll never know whether he should have picked himself for Bethpage
Obviously, Bradley could not have known how his six picks would perform. But given that he won three points from four matches at Medinah in 2012, and did win another point from three matches two years later, he had reason to believe that he would rise to the occasion this past week.
It cannot be said enough that Bradley is a top 15 player in the world right now. Every single player above him in the world rankings – which admittedly are far from perfect these days – was playing at Bethpage.
It is a similar story with Data Golf placing him at 16th. The 15 players above him were all playing in the Ryder Cup.
Certainly, Team USA would have been no worse off over the first two days having Bradley play in both fourball sessions, for example.
It may not have changed anything had Bradley played. But the problem for the skipper is that the scoreline ended up being so close that it is inevitable that he will be wondering what would have happened had he been playing.
It is widely accepted that any captain other than Bradley would have picked Bradley.
Team USA were denied the chance to call upon one of their best competitors; someone with a passion for the Ryder Cup that is almost unrivalled on his side of the Atlantic.
With that, the biggest what if Bradley will now have to wrestle with is what would have happened if he had decided to pick himself.
The fact that no one will ever know the answer makes the decision all the more agonising.
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