Keegan Bradley Press Conference | 2025 PGA Championship Pre-Tournament

Watch Keegan Bradley’s pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club.

Subscribe to keep up with the latest from the PGA Championship: https://bit.ly/PGAChampionshipYT  

Contested each May, the PGA Championship is the second major championship in golf’s annual rotation and perennially features the strongest field in the men’s game based on the Official World Golf Rankings. Known for dramatic finishes and notable champions, the Wanamaker Trophy—which has been awarded to the winner since 1916—is inscribed with names such as Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. 
 
The 2025 PGA Championship is set to take place between 8-11 May at Quail Hollow Club. The reigning champion is Xander Schauffele. 

Website: https://pgachampionship.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pgachampionship 
X: https://twitter.com/pgachampionship 
Instagram: https://instagram.com/pgachampionship/

All right, 2011 PGA Champion and 2025 US RDER Cup captain Keegan Bradley is with us now at the 107th PGA Championship. Keegan, welcome to your 15th PGA Championship. You continue to wear two hats, competing as yourself, of course, and also serving as the US RDER Cup captain. I understand you had a chance last week to gather with some potential team members. Can you tell us about that, please? Yeah, it was uh amazing. It was It’s always uh fun this time of year to get the guys all together under one roof uh the caddies, the wives, the players, and really start to celebrate a Ryder Cup year. And it was great to see everybody there and chat with everybody. And um it’s just a great group of guys. That’s great. We’ll open up for questions starting right here on seven with Alex. Hey Keegan. Um, regarding past team captains, we’ve seen before. There are captains who kind of lean a little bit more on emotion or heart with picking and strategy for the week of captains like Stacy Lewis have gone more analytical in recent years. How are you balancing those two things as we lead up to the RDER Cup? Yeah, I think uh we have to see how this how the team takes shape here in the next couple months, but we’ll definitely be using uh analytics to help us make the picks along with, you know, obviously the eye test of of who we think is going to be suited for Beth Paige. But I think I think when you get down to it, it’s they’re always really tough decisions, so the more information you can get uh helps you with those. Um but we’ll see how the team takes shape in the next couple months. up to Mike 13, please. Keegan, you know, in reference to dinners like you just had, I mean, how much of that is the value of that kind of based on your own experiences, you know, talking about I think, you know, you said the line two years ago being an outsider a little bit of like trying to cultivate that feeling so when September comes, it’s not an outsider. Yeah. I mean, we’re we’re we we had that Ryder Cup uh dinner the other week, but we’re working every day every week to for for the guys for for Beth Paige. But I think it’s important. I know for me as a player, I loved going to these meetings because it started to get real like this is coming and and you know, I really want to get on this team and try to motivate the guys to be excited to play for our captains that we have and get excited to play at Beth Paige Black. And I like I said, as a player, I was always just so excited to go to stuff like that because it’s our dream to be on these teams and even getting invited to a meeting like that is special because it means you’re you’re could make the team. What’s the value in getting like a Luke Clanton in something like that? Yeah, I mean we it’s important. We we I think with the group of captains and vice captains we have, we we want to make everyone feel comfortable. We’re going to have an open line of communication and you know for a lot of the guys that are going to be on this team they know these guys really well which uh is a little different than the past I I think and uh they feel really comfortable. I mean they could be any given week could tee it up with these guys in a PJ tournament. Over to Jay Mike too. This is an eye test kind of question. This is an eye test sort of weekend. It’s one of the most pressure filled weekends of the year. What are you going to be looking for on Sunday afternoon if you’ve got some people that are in contention? What are you going to be looking for them to do? Well, I think these majors are kind of separate guys. So, you see a guy, you know, hang in there on Sunday. That’s a it’s an impressive thing, especially around a course like this. So, you know, like I said, it’s I’m still out there playing and trying to do my thing, but, you know, we these majors are there’s a lot of points at stake here and the the movement on the points list is it can be a lot in these events. So, you know, you you see a guy, maybe a younger guy that, you know, stands up to the pressure and can feel this this is as close as we’re going to get to Beth Page and that, you know, the the pressure on Sunday is is a lot in a major. Um, you can you can see a lot there. And what do the Celtics have to do to get back into this? A lot. I that was sad last night. Hope Jason Tatum’s all right. Let’s let’s let’s win the next game and then we’ll sort it out. Alex, right here. Yeah. Keegan, um can you tell us what live guys you invited to the the thing the dinner last week and who showed up? Yeah, we uh we invited uh Brooks and Bryson and they were uh in there on points and they have played on uh the previous teams and um it was great to have them there. They were it was exciting to this Rder Cup and what comes with this. No one cares about what’s going on in this side PJ tour live. Like we’re we’re trying to put the best team together and it could mean there’s one live guy, two live guys. That doesn’t doesn’t matter. We’ll see how this year shakes out. But it was really great to have them all together with the guys. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do that. And and the other thing is you talked about analytics and it tests and unfortunately from an analytic standpoint there’s really no analytics much analytics I should say out of live and then secondly unless you spend time watching YouTube or whatever there’s not much of an eye test. So do you have to take your approach a little differently with the live side of the equation? Yeah, maybe. I mean, we listen, we got uh these guys are playing in all four of the majors, so we’ll have that. And you know, these guys that a lot of them are up in these leaderboards, every major, so we’ll see how the how the year shapes out. It’s the the the data is a little less at at live. We don’t have quite the same stats that we have out here, but we have some. And you know, we we know winning and contending on any tour at any level is difficult. I don’t care where you play. I I played the mini tours. Winning there was difficult. Winning on the Liv is difficult. And you know, you can see guys, you know, uh winning a live event is a big deal. Up to Paul on 14. Keegan, I know you’ve said in past Ryder Cup years, put a lot of pressure on yourself to play well to try to make one of those teams. Knowing you’re involved as a captain, but still would like to play if you play well enough. How would you kind of compare the pressure you feel on your own game, you know, again, knowing you’re going to be involved either way? Yeah, I mean, I I don’t It’s different this year because my my main job at the RDER Cup is to be the captain. Right now, I go about every day as the captain. I’m not I don’t even think about me as a player at this point. If I get to, you know, the end of the year and I’m in that conversation, I’ll I’ll change that. But for now, I have to I have to operate every day as if I’m the captain and make decisions as the captain. I don’t I’m not thinking of myself as a player on the team at the moment. What are the types of I mean roles that a captain’s doing? Like what are you doing around this time? Obviously, you’re monitoring what players are doing, but that’s probably not the main focus. What are the types of day-to-day things you’re working on? I really just one of one of my favorite things over the last year and a half has been getting to know the guys better. I I’ve known them all, you know, through the years of playing, but I’ve really gotten to know uh most of them much more and it’s been really one of the highlights of my career. I I don’t know if this didn’t happen if I would have gotten to know these guys this well. So, you know, I’m just trying to get uh to know these guys exactly how they want to have the RDER Cup, exactly how they like to be treated, how they like to be spoken to in the in the heat of the moment. Um, and really just having them feel comfortable with me and the other vice captains, which isn’t that difficult considering we all know each other. Uh, but I’ve really enjoyed the process of really getting to know the guys a little better. Over to Bob on 12. Keegan, um, aside from playing in the RDER Cup, just your own game and obviously this is an individual game. You want to do as well as you can, has it impacted that at all? I mean, have you have you found that you’ve had to, you know, maybe put some things aside uh, for the sake of this and and and and how are you dealing with that? I think the hardest thing for me has been not thinking of the RDER Cup when I’m practicing or you know my dayto-day when I’m home with my family. It’s it’s constantly on my mind of what how we’re going to go about doing this, the best way to go about doing this, how to run a proper meeting last week. I think that’s been the biggest obstacle is shutting that part of my brain off, which is interesting because when I get inside the ropes in a tournament, it’s really the only time I can do that. And so sometimes sometimes for us golfers being inside the ropes is actually a peaceful place. And I’ve had that at times this year, but there’s definitely been times where I’ve been practicing and a thought will come into my head and I got to write it down and then I’m thinking about it and that’s a distraction, but it hasn’t affected my preparation or anything like that. Are you good with where your game is right now? Like how do you feel about things? I feel great. I I haven’t putted uh nearly the way I have been over the last couple years. Uh I really felt like I took a big step forward last week, but hitting the ball as good as I’ve hit it. It’s just putting hasn’t quite been there. But I know if I just have a week that that clicks in, you know, I can be right up there. And just last thing, you just a minute ago said you’ve enjoyed like the last year and a half getting to know guys, whatever. Does that mean you knew you were the captain a year and a half ago? Uh let’s see when when was it? Maybe it seems it would have been a year and a half. I guess it would have been quite a year. Maybe it seems like a year. Seems like a decade, but no, it was it’s been uh Yeah, it’s been I guess it’s been less than a year, but yeah. Any other questions for Keegan? Paul, go ahead. Keegan, you’ve previously I think it was President’s Cup, you said just kind of you had previous regrets on how maybe you viewed other guys out here kind of as your competition always and you kind of relished that a lot of the younger guys are friends in this part of this generation. Just now having this kind of renaissance where you were able to play the President’s Cup where you’re doing this, are you relishing having a different viewpoint on how you view your fellow competitors? Yes, I I I really regret early parts of my career. Who knows? Maybe helping me play well. I I wouldn’t know if I did it differently, but I really am I look up to a lot of these guys in the way that they treat each other and that they are genuinely happy for their friend that wins or plays well. And I never really felt that. I was always like wanting to beat everybody. And I think it’s been great for me to get around those guys and feel that sort of joy that they have for their friends. And um I, you know, as the captain now, I I I see a guy like Justin Thomas win and I feel like I’m in the car cheering. Like it’s just so fun for me to to have that feeling. I sort of feel like a a big brother to a lot of these guys and um I thank them for helping me see that side and I think it’s a much better way to go about life on the tour. All right, thanks for your time Keegan. We appreciate it.