Justin Thomas gives his immediate reaction to Keegan Bradley not picking himself to play at the Ryder Cup

Add as preferred source on Google

There was some surprise at the press conference in which Keegan Bradley announced his six picks for the Ryder Cup, with the captain leaving himself out of the team for Bethpage Black.

For more than a year, the golfing world has been waiting to see whether Keegan Bradley would become the first Ryder Cup playing captain since 1963. Bradley is arguably playing the best golf of his career right now.

He won the Travelers Championship in June. At that stage, it appeared inevitable that he would be making his first appearance in a Ryder Cup since 2014.

His form since that win did dip. However, Bradley was in contention for a little while on Sunday at the Tour Championship. With that, the 39-year-old had seemingly staked a strong claim to be a player on his own team.

Justin Thomas reacts to Keegan Bradley not picking himself for the Ryder Cup

But Bradley will be able to focus solely on captaincy in New York in September. He has announced Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns as his six picks.

Bradley’s disappointment that he will not be playing was clear to see. But Thomas was full of praise for the skipper for making the brutal decision for the benefit of the team.

“Keegan said it perfectly. It is going to be said so many times between now and the end of the Ryder Cup that Keegan did and will continue to do whatever is best for the team and that’s what he did,” he said.

“It’s been a really, really cool process to be a part of as a player and everybody does it so differently. Every captain is so great in different ways but for the communication and how transparent Keegan has been, I mean I don’t want to speak for everybody, but I would say this isn’t something we have experienced before.

“There were guys who heard things they probably wouldn’t be expecting to hear, brutally honest if you will. But he’s said it himself he has been in the shoes of being in the dark and not knowing where you are and that’s how he has approached this entire captaincy.

“He wants to do whatever is best for the team and communicate everything as well as he possibly can. I know he is gutted. I think all of us are gutted for him but at the same time I would say him leading us to victory would be cooler than any experience he can have as a player and that’s probably what he feels for us. So we have all the faith in the world and we do not doubt him for one second for that.”

Impossible not to feel for Keegan Bradley as he decides against being a playing captain at the Ryder Cup

Bradley will know what the narrative will be if USA fail to regain the Ryder Cup next month. He has won in each of the last four years on the PGA Tour. And his form is all the more impressive this year because of all of the noise going on in the background.

Bradley is an amazing competitor. Although little can still be taken from what happened at the 2012 Ryder Cup 13 years on, Bradley was unquestionably a revelation that week at Medinah.

It does appear that Bradley has made the right decision to ensure that he can give his team the best chance of victory.

However, it is impossible not to feel for Bradley ahead of a Ryder Cup in which he, in different circumstances, could have easily made the team as a player.