Keegan Bradley’s hopes of being a playing captain at next year’s Ryder Cup have perhaps received a boost with the 38-year-old handed one of Jim Furyk’s captain’s picks for the Presidents Cup later this month.
Of course, Keegan Bradley staked a big claim to receive a captain’s pick for the Presidents Cup with his victory at the BMW Championship last month, with the 2011 PGA champion making the most of just sneaking into the field for the second event of the FedEx Cup play-offs.
Bradley is arguably playing some of the best golf of his career right now; proving a real point after the shock announcement that he will captain the Ryder Cup team at Bethpage next year.
Bradley has spoken of his desire to be a playing captain in New York, and he will perhaps get a taste of how possible that could be after already being appointed by Jim Furyk as a vice-captain for the upcoming Presidents Cup.
Ryan Lavner thinks Jim Furyk should have picked another player ahead of Keegan Bradley for the Presidents Cup
However, with that decision already ensuring that Bradley would be in Montreal, Ryan Lavner has told the Golf Channel Podcast that he cannot understand the call to also hand him a captain’s pick, particularly when you consider the circumstances of his win at Castle Pines.
“I think the most head scratching part of this is that it isn’t just the most recent form of the players that he did pick,” he said.
“It also has to do with who the other available options were who Jim Furyk could have rounded off the American team with.
“Keegan Bradley does have the recent win at elevation, the 50 man event at the BMW Championship. The point is that was an outlier, an anomaly. That win was his only top 20 finish in his past nine starts. The only reason he got in was because Tom Kim collapsed at TPC Southwind in the last couple of holes.
In his place I would have put a player like Billy Horschel. When Jim Furyk is citing Keegan Bradley’s most positive attributes, the grit, the passion, the determination – keep in mind he has not played in a US team competition for a decade. You are already getting those attributes from Keegan Bradley because he is going to be part of the US team room.
“I would have taken Billy Horschel, who does the exact same thing as Keegan Bradley. Has played consistently better than Bradley over the past couple of months, remember the deep run at The Open as well as a couple of good finishes in the play offs and he is a better putter at this stage of his career than Keegan Bradley is. That is the one for one replacement that Furyk overlooked.”
Why Furyk may have decided to pick Bradley over Billy Horschel
It is true that the form of some of those relying on a captain’s pick was far from ideal, with neither Max Homa or Brian Harman making it to The Tour Championship. So perhaps Furyk felt that Bradley’s win was particularly significant.
Sam Burns and Russell Henley did manage to impress during the play-offs, while Tony Finau is almost a veteran of these competitions at this stage. But the inclusions of Homa and Harman are more risky, so leaving out someone who has won in the last month may have been something Furyk was not prepared to do.
It would also be interesting to know how much of Furyk’s job is about looking forward to the next Ryder Cup. If he is keeping one eye on next year, then perhaps he felt that it was imperative that Bradley got the chance to juggle some responsibility with the playing side.
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