Johnson Wagner has admitted that he has changed his mind about one decision Keegan Bradley has made ahead of the Ryder Cup, believing that the USA captain has actually made an incredibly smart move.
With Luke Donald confirming his six captain’s picks for Bethpage on Monday, fans know the 24 players who will contest arguably the most highly-anticipated Ryder Cup of all-time later this month.
While Donald’s choices were far from surprising, there was a lot more debate over the six players Keegan Bradley would include on his team.
Of course, the most interesting question heading into his announcement concerned whether the 39-year-old would pick himself.
Johnson Wagner says he has changed his mind about one decision Keegan Bradley made before the Ryder Cup
Bradley was inside the top 12 in the standings and won the Travelers Championship in June. Patrick Cantlay was among the players to suggest that Bradley was playing well enough to make the team.
There were reports after the Tour Championship claiming Bradley was set to pick himself. However, the 2011 PGA Championship winner ultimately opted to leave himself out.
And speaking on 5 Clubs, Johnson Wagner suggested that he has been won over by Bradley’s decision having previously felt that he made the wrong call.
“The honour of being a Ryder Cup captain, I think it would have been really cool to watch him make history. I was looking forward to him playing and being captain as well, sharing those roles. But now that I reflect on it as the week has gone by, the amount of noise and media attention that has now been squashed from this competition, I think is really good for this US team, not only Keegan, but all the players,” he said.
“Having to answer question after question, they’re going to Napa, and it would have all been about, ‘hey, can captain Keegan play?’ So now I think at least the noise is quieted down. They can focus on playing, they don’t have to worry about all that. The amount of internal pressure he would have put on himself I think would have maybe been a little too great, so I’m happy to admit that I was wrong. And I’m happy he made the decision he made.”
What Rory McIlroy said about being a playing captain at the Ryder Cup
The report claiming that Bradley was set to pick himself noted that Europe were hopeful that would be the case, with Luke Donald and his team believing that it could be detrimental to the Americans.
Rory McIlroy was one of those who believed that being a playing captain would be too much.
“You think about the extra media that a captain has to do, you think about the extra meetings that the captains have to do with the vice captains, with the PGA of America, in Keegan’s case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony… just there’s a lot of things that people don’t see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big,” he said.
“If you’d have said it 20 years ago, I’d say, yeah, it was probably possible to do, but how big of a spectacle and everything that’s on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.”
So it does appear that the Europeans may be a little disappointed that Bradley did not decide to take on both roles.
Having said that, the US skipper will know that there is going to be plenty of criticism coming his way should they lose, with Bradley put in almost an impossible position.
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