Keegan Bradley's Ryder Cup Dilemma is Good For Europe

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

Another one-sided Presidents Cup has been and gone, with the USA celebrating a 10th successive success. 

In truth, the result was never in doubt after Jim Furyk’s team raced into a 5-0 lead on day one. The Internationals provided some genuine excitement by winning the second session by the same margin. It meant that we briefly wondered if we were going to witness a miracle but in truth most of us knew in our heart of hearts that it was highly unlikely. And that is precisely how it turned out.

Tom Kim ensured that there was some controversy but the truth is that it takes more than a spat or two to maintain interest in a one-sided contest.

The Ryder Cup was saved by the inclusion of Continental Europe, a transition that transformed the event and ultimately helped turn it into arguably the greatest spectacle in professional golf.

Sadly, there is nowhere for The Internationals to turn to strengthen their team. Well, they can hardly include European golfers, can they? That would simply mean that we would effectively have a Ryder Cup every year.

Maybe the Americans could take pity on their opponents and give them a start? Or just send out one player in the four balls. Mind you, if that player was Scottie Scheffler or Xander Schauffele it would probably make little or no difference.

So they will have to soldier on, hoping against hope. The problem is that, as much as American fans enjoy watching their teams win, interest is bound to wane. And how do you attract blue-chip sponsors to an event where you know what the result is going to be before a single shot has been struck?

For me, the most fascinating aspect in Montreal was watching the performance of Keegan Bradley. 

Earlier this year he was named non-playing captain of the US Ryder Cup team to take on Luke Donald’s Europe at Bethpage next year. 

It was an appointment that stunned the world of golf for a couple of reasons - he had famously been snubbed for a captain’s pick by Zack Johnson for the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone when he clearly merited a place in the team, and, at the age of 38, he is still a highly competitive golfer who was sitting in the top 20 in the world rankings at the time of his appointment.

And in August he won the BMW Championship and is now 14th in the rankings. Furyk had no choice but to pick him for the Presidents Cup and, lo and behold, he won the point that secured victory for the USA.

He had originally been named as one of Furyk’s vice-captains, a role that would have allowed him to gain some valuable behind-the-scenes experience. The last time that Bradley represented his country as a player was at the 2014 Ryder Cup, when the USA were thrashed by Europe at Gleneagles. There is a world of difference between being a playing member of a losing team and being captain of a side trying to win back the trophy.

As things stand, he remains a non-playing Ryder Cup captain, but trust me when I tell you that Donald will be licking his lips right now because Bradley is certain to be a major distraction in the weeks and months ahead. His world ranking means that he gets entry to all four majors next season, as well as the PGA Tour’s signature events. 

There is now a very real chance that he will play his way into his own team. And if that happens then he is going to have no option but to hand the captaincy to somebody else.

In the meantime, every time he turns up to play in a PGA Tour event he is going to be questioned about his position. It is going to be a major distraction for Bradley. 

It also has to be said that the PGA of America is going to have to get its act together to name a stand-in - and I believe they should be doing that now. They simply have to make it clear that if Bradley qualifies as a player then somebody, probably Webb Simpson, will take his place as captain. 

The last man to combine captaincy with playing was Arnold Palmer, way back in 1963. That was in the days when the USA would routinely hammer GB&I. There wasn’t any pressure on the American captain. In truth, there wasn’t any pressure on anybody involved because the result was a foregone conclusion.

These days, the Ryder Cup is a very different animal. This is what Rory McIlroy has to say on the subject of combining both roles: 

"I’ve contemplated [being a playing-captain] for Adare [Manor, in 2027] and no, there’s much work that goes into it. I’ve seen what Luke went through preparing for Rome - there’s no way you can be as good a captain as you need to be and be a playing captain as well.

"If you want to be the best captain you can be, you can’t play. And if you want to be the best player you can be, you can’t captain. It’s one or the other."

And it seems that Bradley agrees. Immediately after winning the Presidents Cup he said: "I would love to join these guys and play next year. I don’t know how that would ever be possible, but seeing what Jim [Furyk] did, seeing how nervous I was to play. But I’m going to push that down the road. If I make the team on points, I’ll consider playing, but outside of that, I won’t because this is really important to me next year.

"I don’t care about my personal gains of playing in the tournament, I only care about winning the Ryder Cup. I think the best way to do that is to let these boys play and let them do what they do. We’ll see. I don’t see it happening, but we’ll see."