MONTREAL – After Keegan Bradley won the 2011 PGA Championship and played in the Ryder Cup in 2012 and 2014 and the Presidents Cup in 2013, he assumed he was going to play for the U.S. side every year. Then a decade went by without him representing the U.S. in either competition.
“I remember thinking when we’re watching the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, I’m thinking, ‘I’m never going to get to do this again.’ It was a bummer,” he said.
A year ago, Bradley got the hard-luck call that he hadn’t been picked for the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup in Rome. The cameras for the Netflix documentary “Full Swing” were rolling at his home as he received the heartbreaking news for all to see how much he was crushed to be left off the team. Then, in July, Bradley was the surprise choice to captain the U.S. squad for the 2025 Ryder Cup. That led to U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Jim Furyk offering him a role as an assistant captain.
But Bradley, 38, messed up those best-laid plans as he continued his career resurgence to No. 13 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Last month he won the BMW Championship and Furyk gave him the nod as one of his six captain’s picks.
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“I kind of wanted him to be an assistant captain, but he just had to go and play so darn good at the BMW and kind of lead from wire-to-wire and kind of earn a spot on the team in my mind,” Furyk said. “So we’ve kind of taken those assistant duties away from him and focus on kind of integrating himself amongst his teammates, being a leader on that team with kind of a veteran status, and everyone knows he’s the captain next year as well.”
Bradley bleeds red, white and blue like few other competitors. He famously still hasn’t unpacked his bag from when the Americans lost the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah and refuses to do so until he’s part of a winning side.
“To be back here a decade later, it’s really been a special week. I look around the room at dinners and stuff, and there’s nobody there that I was on these other teams with, and Jim was playing the last time I was out here,” Bradley said. “I want to prove to the guys that their captain can still play.”
The shoes of Keegan Bradley of the U.S. Team for the 2024 Presidents Cup at The Royal Montreal Golf Club. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
One of those players on the U.S. side that reminds Bradley a bit of himself is Wyndham Clark, who won a major and has since made the last two U.S. teams.
“He’s older than me and kind of in different walks of life. He’s kind of, not that he’s, his career isn’t done by any means, but he’s on the back end of his career and I’m in the beginning of mine,” Clark said. “It’s great to be around him. He even admitted five weeks ago he was like, ‘I was ready to come up here and be a captain’ and it’s quickly changed. The fun thing is he talked with us about obviously next year and talking about the Ryder Cup. Says, ‘Hey, this is a starting block now.’ This week is huge for Team USA for next year’s Ryder Cup. He’s so positive and such a great leader. I’m really excited that he’s our captain and excited he’s on this team.”
But Bradley isn’t concentrating on assistant captain duties and learning the ropes from Furyk this week ahead of taking the helm for the U.S. efforts to regain the Ryder Cup next year.
“I have to go out there tomorrow and play. So I’m not here to do any of that,” Bradley said. “For me, personally, it’s more about getting to know the guys. I knew them all, but I knew them all sort of from a distance.”
And for Bradley, getting to play one more time – if it happens to be his last time as a player – is a bonus.
“I was almost sure I would never play in another one,” he said. “So, I am trying to remind myself to take a second, look around. I’ve been trying to do that a lot more in my career of taking a moment and looking around and taking it all in.”