Keegan Bradley has failed in his role as US Ryder Cup captain.
That may be slightly harsh on Bradley, and some blame definitely needs to be laid at the feet of his players, but the Ryder Cup captain has just made too many glaring errors, with his poor decision-making undermining his team’s chances of success at Bethpage Black.
The 39-year-old from Vermont is understandably receiving huge criticism for his decision to play Collin Morikawa and Harris English as a pairing in the foursomes matches on Friday and Saturday.
However, Bradley’s refusal to play J.J. Spaun in either of the Ryder Cup foursomes sessions was equally as head-scratching.
Bradley has suggested that the lack of putts holed by his US Ryder Cup team has been the main reason for Europeans’ dominance.
That in itself proves just how out of his depth the American has been in his role as captain. Anyone who truly understands golf will tell you that there are a whole multitude of reasons why the Europeans have dominated the Americans this week.
Keegan Bradley seemingly may not have known key Ryder Cup rule
Bradley was visibly rattled after the beating his team were given on day two of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage.
As a result, he bumbled his way through his press conference in the media center on Saturday night.
After hearing Luke Donald speak prior to Bradley talking, it was very clear to see who was comfortable in the leadership role and who wasn’t.
Johnson Wagner noticed one really concerning thing Bradley said during his press conference.
Bradley responded when asked about Viktor Hovland‘s neck injury and the possibility of one of his players missing out in the singles.
He said: “No. I — we need to go out there and play this tournament the way it was supposed to be played. I have to go figure this out now. I’m still learning what’s going on.
“I don’t know how that’s going to end up. We’ll see in a few minutes.“
And Wagner was shocked by Bradley’s lack of awareness regarding the situation.
He said: “I want to go back to the comment that Keegan made about this envelope thing. He said, ‘we’re going to play this thing like we intended to’. And by saying that, it made me feel, he’d be on this team if he weren’t the captain, can we agree on that? He has been focusing on his game, and then you listen to Luke Donald talk. Did Keegan not know this rule? It’s been there forever, like did he not realise what he was doing? If Viktor Hovland can’t go because of a neck injury, someone has got to sit and he’s upset because it will be one less full point to win.
“The point I want to make here is that I think we haven’t given enough credit to the captaincy. It’s hard to do while you’re still playing golf at the highest level. He was top 10 in the FedEx Cup, he almost won the Tour Championship. It’s hard to do both.
“Luke Donald has poured everything into this for the past four years now. I want to give Keegan a little bit of grace but I just think this is a moment that sticks out to me.“
Perhaps the most worrying thing about this is that both captains are instructed to produce an envelope at the start of the week with one player’s name inside.
Did Bradley not do that? Or has he completely forgotten about it? Bradley has now just created a situation whereby he will have a lot of uncomfortable questions to answer on Sunday, whatever happens.
Only two players have ever missed out due to Ryder Cup ‘envelope’ rule
The ‘envelope’ rule came into effect in 1979, but it has only had to be used twice between then and the present day.
Hovland’s neck issue means that whoever’s name is inside the American envelope could become only the third man in the history of the Ryder Cup to have to forfeit the chance to play his singles match.
The first time the rule came into play was at Kiawah Island in 1991 when Steve Pate was forced to miss the singles through injury and David Gilford was the name inside the European envelope.
History then repeated itself two years later at the Belfry when Lanny Wadkins sat out the singles after Sam Torrance suffered an injury while sleepwalking in his hotel.
If Hovland is forced to miss the Ryder Cup singles, it will be very interesting to see whose name is inside the US envelope.
Bradley will obviously be hoping that the Norwegian is fit to play because he cannot afford giving up the chance to win a full point in any of the Ryder Cup singles matches.
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