The eyes of the golf world were on Keegan Bradley on Wednesday morning.
For a year now, ever since Bradley was named the captain of the United States team for the 2025 Ryder Cup, his six captain's picks – and the possibility he could pick himself as a playing captain – loomed as a defining storyline for this edition of the biennial team event pitting the best from the U.S. and Europe. Bradley called it the biggest decision of his life.
But with less than a month to go before the match-play action gets underway at Bethpage Black Golf Course in Farmingdale, New York, Bradley chose not to make history. In fact, he made the choice awhile ago, he said, "and I'm glad it's over."
Bradley announced his captain's picks during a news conference from PGA of America headquarters in Frisco, Texas, and did not make himself the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. Instead, Bradley added Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns as captain's pick to the United States team's six automatic qualifiers.
"The decision was made awhile ago that I wasn't playing. The last 48 hours or so we had the team set. We weren't scrambling at all," Bradley said. "This was a really tough decision. I would say there was a point this year where I was playing awhile ago, and all these guys stepped up in a major way and played their way on this team. That's something that I'm really proud of and something that I really wanted."
