Keegan Bradley proving to be a playing-captain at next year’s Ryder Cup has rarely looked so possible since the shock announcement of his appointment was made, following the 38-year-old’s win at the BMW Championship last week.
One of the biggest reasons so many were taken aback when the PGA of America announced Keegan Bradley as the next Ryder Cup captain was the fact that the 2011 PGA champion has enjoyed something of a career revival in the last couple of years. In fact, when the announcement came, Bradley found himself in the top 20 in the world rankings.
Some may have wondered whether the appointment would have a detrimental impact on Bradley’s playing form, as he starts to turn some of his attention towards the task of regaining the Samuel Ryder trophy at Bethpage Black. However, the opposite has proved to be true.
Bradley only just made it through the door ahead of the BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup play-offs, but he made the most of the opportunity as he won at Castle Pines last week. The win has left Bradley 10th in the qualification standings for the Presidents Cup.
Keegan Bradley speaks about playing at the 2025 Ryder Cup
It remains to be seen if Jim Furyk will hand him a captain’s pick for next month, but it certainly seems that Bradley is determined to give all he can to make his own team in New York next year. In fact, as he told The Smylie Show, many behind the scenes want to see him teeing it up, too.
“When I got the call to be the Ryder Cup captain, it was, first off, a complete shock, but part of the call, the first things they said were, ‘we want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1962’,” he said.
“It wasn’t like, ‘we don’t think you can play anymore’, or, ‘you’re in this ceremonial role’. They made it very clear to me, and other players, top guys on the team said to me, ‘we really want you to be on the team’, so it was definitely a part of me, because you definitely start to think not like a player as a captain. I have to catch myself because you start to think of not what you would normally think of as a player.”
What Jim Furyk should perhaps do at the Presidents Cup
There is no question that Bradley will face a monumental task to qualify for his own team, particularly if the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele have anything like the seasons they have had this year in 2025.
There is a lot of depth within the US ranks right now. Perhaps therefore, it may be smart for Furyk to give him a taste of handling two roles at the Presidents Cup next month. Certainly, if he cannot give the vice-captaincy his all due to playing in Montreal, then he is surely going to have little chance of juggling the captaincy and playing at the Ryder Cup.
It is definitely the right decision for Bradley to target making the team as a player, but it is going to be such an enormous challenge.
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