Keegan Bradley was always facing an uphill battle at the Ryder Cup, with Luke Donald already having one victory as captain on his resume heading into Bethpage Black.
It caught everyone, including Keegan Bradley it seems, off-guard when he was named as the captain of Team USA for the 2025 Ryder Cup.
What was never in any doubt was Bradley’s passion for the event, as well as his knowledge of Bethpage Black. But clearly, it was a gamble from the PGA of America to turn to the 39-year-old when he was playing some of the best golf of his career.
And perhaps Bradley’s inability to give everything to the captaincy hurt him.
The decision Keegan Bradley made on Friday at the Ryder Cup which surprised Edoardo Molinari
Europe ended up winning 15-13, but only after a stunning fightback from the home side on Sunday. Nevertheless, Donald’s men were able to win one match in the singles and still lift the trophy.
With that, it was hard not to look back on some of the American skipper’s decisions and wonder what could have been different.
One call which baffled many was sticking by Collin Morikawa and Harris English for both foursomes sessions. They lost 5&4 on Friday morning. But they were sent out for a second time on Saturday, losing again to Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood.
Bradley defended keeping Morikawa and English together. But speaking on Fried Egg Golf, Edoardo Molinari admitted that he was taken aback when he saw Saturday’s pairings late the previous night.
“For the second time, I would say I was very surprised. I think the first time, if you want to play everyone on the first day, you have to make sacrifices somewhere. And I guess, in matchplay, anything can happen, like the differences between these guys is not that big. So they could have easily gone and played well and won the game,” he said.
“I would say with all the respect, the way they played on Friday morning, if the same thing happened to us, we would’ve put out a different foursomes, regardless of who it is. If you don’t play well, and you get beaten pretty badly, I would still play the guys, but maybe in a different format or with a different partner, or something else. I don’t think if we were 3-1 down, I don’t think you would have seen the exact same lineup on the next day.”
How the European team reacted to how Keegan Bradley set up Bethpage
The one mistake Bradley admitted to in the hours after losing the Ryder Cup was how Bethpage was set up. One of the most iconic courses in the country was a shell of itself, with the rough cut back and the greens so much softer than they would have been for a major championship.
It appeared that Bradley had overseen the changes which would benefit the American side of the 2016 Ryder Cup.
Molinari suggested that the Europeans were certainly pleased once they saw the course the week of the Ryder Cup.
“I would say the course setup, that definitely surprised me, in a good way. We were kind of hoping that they were going to go with the usual setup of no rough and make it a birdie-fest, because we felt like we were making more birdies than they were,” he added.
“We had some very long hitters that were very happy seeing no rough. Even someone like Rory, he can play any course in the world, but if he can pick and choose a golf course, it would be very long, not much rough, soft-ish greens so even if he’s in the rough he can go for pins. And this year he’s had the best putting year of his career. So all those things combined. When we went there for the practice trip, we were kind of hoping it was going to be what we saw. And then, by the time Monday of the Ryder Cup came, they cut down the rough even more, which was again, very surprising in a very good way.”
The worry for fans of Team USA is how avoidable some of the errors seemingly were.
The likes of Russell Henley, Morikawa and J.J. Spaun are not among the longest hitters on the PGA Tour, but they are all brilliant iron players.
Meanwhile, the Europeans would have struggled a lot more if they were hitting approach shots from the rough while Scottie Scheffler was in the middle of the fairway.
Elsewhere, Bryson DeChambeau is not particularly erratic for how far he hits the ball.
So from the outside, it seems that Bradley just gave up some of the potential advantages his team would have. It is no surprise that Molinari could not quite understand the thinking.
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