Keegan Bradley’s stunning Travelers win was expected to secure his place in the 2025 Ryder Cup
Keegan Bradley’s win at the Travelers Championship in June had many convinced that he would become the first playing captain at the Ryder Cup since 1963.
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When Bradley was first named captain, it always seemed like there was a real chance he’d also play his way onto the team. He was already inside the world’s top 20, and his omission from the previous Ryder Cup squad had been widely criticised, even if his inclusion wouldn’t have changed much about the outcome.
The 2011 PGA Champion spent most of this year hovering around the top 12, and after his win at TPC River Highlands, it looked like a spot on both sides of the ropes at Bethpage was within reach.
But there’s a reason no one has held both roles in over six decades. The demands are simply too great. As captain, Bradley needed to be fully available for team duties throughout all three days of competition.
Taking on both responsibilities would have stretched him thin, and Team USA couldn’t afford that risk. It made sense for him to step aside as a player and focus solely on leading from outside the ropes.
Hal Sutton gives Keegan Bradley some advice ahead of the Ryder Cup
It would be a risk for Bradley to take on both roles, especially given his recent form. And if the US were to lose at home, it would only add fuel to the fire.
Hal Sutton, who captained Team USA in 2004, understands the challenges that come with that role and spoke about it on Subpar.
Sutton said he’d advise Bradley to hand over captaincy duties to one of his assistants and focus on playing instead.
“Well, he’s already spent a lot of time being the captain because they cart you around, promoting it everywhere around the country, the PGA of America does. So he’s already put his time in, in my opinion, as a captain. I think he ought to play to be honest with you. If he called me and asked me, I’d say play. I always had more fun playing because you can affect the outcome playing. As a captain, you’re no better than they are playing. If they’re not playing well, it’s pretty hard to win no matter what you do. You can’t out-captain out of that. So I’d play,”
“Just play [and drop the captaincy], because it takes your mind off of the playing if you’ve got to make some decisions on being a captain too. He’s got qualified people who are assistants. He can let one of them do it.”
Hal Sutton’s time as captain is often defined by one pairing
Sutton’s place in Ryder Cup history isn’t one he’ll look back on fondly. He was in charge when the US lost 18.5-9.5 at Oakland Hills, which still stands as their biggest defeat. The same scoreline repeated two years later at The K Club.
He’s often remembered for pairing Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson together on the opening day, a partnership that lost both matches and was never used again in the event.
To be fair to Sutton, Europe had already won on American soil just nine years earlier, and they came close again at Brookline in 1999 before things turned around dramatically on Sunday. So European success in the US wasn’t exactly new by 2004.
The Ryder Cup has only grown bigger since then. Bradley will know that whatever decision he makes over the coming weeks will be picked apart unless he can deliver a strong win in New York.
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