Voice over: Michael Robles
Writer: Riley Hamel
Video editor: Lance Keller
For most players in the United States and Europe,
representing your country at the Ryder Cup is the ultimate
goal. A week where you play for more than yourself. So,
you can imagine that finding out you didn’t make the cut is
devastating.
Just ask Keegan Bradley.
Bradley was arguably the biggest snub for Team USA
after putting together a stellar 2022-23 PGA Tour season.
Across 18 made cuts in 23 starts, the 37-year-old finished
inside the top 25 10 times, inside the top 10 six times and
won the Zozo Championship and the Travelers
Championship as a local hero. He concluded the year
tying for ninth at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, and
the countdown was on to see if he was going to be one of
Zach Johnson’s captain’s picks.
During an interview with Barstool Sports’ ‘Foreplay’
podcast
, Bradley told the story of the morning he got the
call from Johnson.
“I got a text from Zach, ‘Hey, guys, I’m going to be calling
everybody tomorrow morning.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, shit, I got
another night now of sweating this out.’ I wake up, I’m very
tired, and I get a call from Netflix and they say, ‘Keegan,
we got a camera crew five minutes from your house.’ Why
would they be sending a camera crew if I’m not going to
get picked?”
Bradley continued.
“For the first time, I let my brain think I did it. Why would
they be rushing a camera crew to my house? And as soon
as I picked up the phone, it was like a ‘Hey, Keegan … ‘
And I look over at Jill a second into the call, and I go like,
no.”
“It was devastating.”
In two Ryder Cup appearances — 2012 and 2014 —
Bradley amassed a 4-3 record, going 0-2 in Sunday
Singles.
Bradley posted this message to Twitter on Aug. 30.
This is my suitcase from 2012 Ryder Cup that I haven’t
opened since that Sunday. I promised myself I wouldn’t open
it till I won a Ryder Cup.
That week changed my prospective on golf forever. The Ryder
Cup suddenly became very important to me.
F4yH6jdWkAAzs_n.jpg ¬
During that week I had some of my best
memories coupled with some of my darkest in
my golf career.
I’m proud of the effort I put in to make this
amazing team over a decade later.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
He later posted: “All of the support has been amazing, but
it’s time now to get behind this US team. I’m gonna be
watching and pulling as hard as I can for them! GO USA”
A class act.
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