To Captain or Not to Captain: Experts on Keegan’s Choice-Fairways of Life w Matt Adams Tues June 24

Matt Adams recaps an incredible finish at the Travelers Championship for Keegan Bradley and is joined by Tour winners Jim Gallagher Jr and Tripp Isenhour to discuss if this victory means Keegan should play on his own Ryder Cup team. Hear from Keegan Bradley, the latest LPGA major champ Minjee Lee plus the best putter in the world Denny McCarthy stops by.

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welcome to the most listened to golf in the world the Fairways of Life show on air online and around the world with the most candid interviews unforgettable stories taking you beyond the ropes here’s your host New York Times bestselling author Matt Adams welcome into the PXG Custom Studios you have never played like this before pxg.com for more information we are coming to you from studio 2 i’m hosting Golf Central for the next couple of weeks this is kind of our I call it our home away from home but it I think I’m actually up here probably more than our main studio down in Orlando it’s going to be warm up here i know this heat wave is going across the entire country and everybody is dealing with it it’s going to be over a 100red degrees in Central Park today in New York City so stay cool out there wherever you are we got a really cool show ready for you today we’re going to be joined by multiple players from the PGA Tour because there are so many questions surrounding in the wake of Keegan Bradley’s victory at the Travelers Championship about what the captain should do and there’s opinions on both sides in terms of whether he could or should name himself as one of the players on the Ryder Cup team he might automatically qualify too he’s currently ninth in the rankings we’re going to get into that in today’s show and and what we wanted to do was instead of just having you know a golf media member pontificate as to whether or not they think that he should be on the team we wanted to go to players themselves let’s get in fact well how about a player that’s actually been on the RDER Cup team and find out from them is what because it keeps on getting brought up to say the people who are against it that are saying well you know I’m not sure there’s there’s there’s a lot of responsibilities and can you handle the responsibilities whilst being a player which I look at that I I even said it on Golf today I said it on Golf Central last night why not you’ve got you’ve got your vice captains very very capable people some of them very experienced some of them like Jim Furick a former captain himself of of both teams for uh the USA so why not push some of those responsibilities over i love that Keegan Bradley said “No I’m the captain i’ve I’ve put too much into this i’m going to stay the captain whether I play or not.” So let’s reflect a couple of things first of all to the victory itself at the Travelers Championship which was amazing i I saw every second of it because I was hosting the world feed which is really cool and really fun in domestically NBC sports we have the rights obviously to the PGA tour so internationally the feed that I was doing goes to 170 countries probably more but it’s at least 170 countries around the world and I was working with Billy Kratzer I was working with Craig Perks on the ground floor as was Brendan the young so and you guys already knew from last week’s show Dom and I were up at the Travelers so that broadcast was so much fun to do because of the way it ended not so much fun for Tommy Fleetwood we’re going to get into that for just a second and I think everybody all of us felt bad for Tommy with the way that he finished because he came that close but at the same time that was balanced against the euphoria of what Keegan Bradley did again because of all the ramifications and what it could mean plus just the sheer joy of what he accomplished and how he accomplished it there’s you know TBC River Highlands in Cromwell Connecticut it’s I’ve called it for years you’ve got the US Open the week before then you’ve got Travelers Championship and the Travelers is almost like an anti- US Open and I don’t mean that in a negative way i just mean it’s starkly different than the US Open it’s it’s uh you know NHL playoffs usually are lowscoring games do you want a low-scoring game do you want a lot of goals scored same for basketball you know what what type of competition you want to see i respect the fact that when you’re talking about a major championship it’s going to be a tight score it’s going to be just a couple players usually that are under par well at the Travelers Championship this is about birdies and that brings a different kind of excitement and every year the Travelers Championship delivers in terms of the excitement and how it finishes and man did it do it this year so with this cut from Keegan Bradley and John Burkett put together a couple small cuts here for us that really highlight these points that I wanted to pull out today and where better to get them from or hear them from than the man himself and Keegan Bradley we start with that putt but it’s not only that family there this is he considers this his hometown event one of to him it’s like a major championship he’s won it two out of the last three years he was Keegan Bradley well it was really strange actually because I didn’t really expect to have it to win so all of a sudden I had a putt to win the tournament uh hadn’t led ever uh till you know the last putt so uh really what dreams are made of um I’m really proud of myself for it’s a lot of energy on that last hole with the crowd and I I did a great job of sort of staying in my own little zone and doing what I what I do best pretty great i I the support I get here the sport I get everywhere with the RDER Cup uh captain and the USA chance but especially here it’s pretty pretty incredible and to have my family here uh you know I’ I’ve been fortunate enough to win a few times with my family and other members of my family around which never doesn’t happen a lot for guys and uh what a special thing to to be able to experience well I was on the 18th TE and I looked out and I couldn’t believe how many people were up there and then I hit my drive i had a perfect drive and I saw it land in the fairway and I heard the crowd like really cheer when I hit the fairway and I thought I’ve never heard that before when I’ve hit a drive and then you know when I was walking up to the cabal they’re cheering me on and then when it was my turn to hit the crowd really started to like cheer like I couldn’t believe I had to take a second to like get it together here because I I needed to hit a shot and um and then when it when it landed and hit the green because I can’t see where the ball is the crowd really went crazy um and then when Tommy hit his putt right behind my coin they went crazy again and then when I had the putt to win the tournament they were cheering and and I I really felt I’m not a very calm guy and I felt for me very calm over that putt which was strange and I just I I have a putt to win the tournament and I just went through my routine all the stupid cliches that we all say i just went through my process my routine tommy’s put sometimes I don’t like when you see the players hit the putt I I I saw his break a ton and when I went and felt it with my feet I felt it at a half degree and his broke more like a one or maybe more and I just decided to trust my read cuz I didn’t feel it and I played mine left center and it went in right in the middle so um what an incredible uh memory listen I know how hard it must be for him uh he’s a just an unbelievable player and you know he’s fighting so hard to get his first win and you know it’s a it’s a weird thing to be on the other side of that uh I do feel bad for him but you know I got to go out and do what I what I need to do uh but he you know he he battled today and I really hope that he gets his win soon sometimes when I watch guys win tournaments and they don’t do anything I don’t get it because this is your chance to explode uh you know we work so hard to get to these moments and we work so hard on pushing all of our emotions down and for me it’s like that’s that’s nothing like I’m holding that in i want to do that on the second hole uh so for me to be able to let that out is is really fun so the whole week you heard Keegan talking about the the crowd he was talking about them on 18 on Sunday afternoon bearing in mind when the players hit their T- shots on 18 there’s a flat to the fairway but then it drops down to a valley and the green rises up again after that his ball went over the crest down into the valley so we heard the crowd roar but he could he didn’t really know why he obviously knew he hit a good drive but what happened was and this was kind of the the undertone of the entire day with the chance of USA for the United States Rder Cup captain he was going up headtohead and started the day behind Tommy Fleetwood who is a cornerstone of the European Rder Cup team currently right fair said so what happened was is when he hit his drive it ended up all said and done between him and Tommy he was he was about 10 yards closer to the green than Tommy was that’s how good a drive Keegan Bradley hit and then he was explaining which I loved about the the the cut that John Burket chose for us there he really couldn’t see where his ball finished on 18 by his account as well because of the angle that he was coming in over the left edge of that bunker that’s the bunker if you remember a few years ago Jordan Spe blasted out of to win so again the whole conversation changes after this as to Keegan Bradley Ryder Cup captain should he be on the United States Rder Cup team does this win change his perspective here’s Keegan on that listen this this changes the story a little bit uh I I never would have thought about playing if I hadn’t won and you know this this definitely opens the door to play i I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not but uh I certainly have to take a a pretty hard look at at what’s best for the team and we’ll see we we still got it’s still it’s still June so you know we still got a long ways to go but uh this definitely changes things a little bit and we’ll get we’ll all get together and figure out the best way to do this so I got the call at 8:00 tonight a year ago today so I’ve been getting these questions for a year uh you know whether I play well or play poorly um is something that I’ve become used to uh to be honest with you I never really planned on playing i really wanted to just be the captain um I really felt strongly about that uh you know I want to I want to serve the guys they asked me to do a job i wanted to do it to the best of my abilities now with the amazing vice captains that I have uh and I have a better perspective of you know playing in the President’s Cup and being around a lot of the guys I feel a lot more comfortable if if I went that route um I’m really proud of the guys that are are vice captains and you know obviously you got Jim Furick you know one of the greatest players to to play and also an an incredibly great captain at the President’s Cup i don’t know i I it’s the lowest I’ve ever been in the world uh you know when they called me and told me that I was being the RDER Cup captain they the fir the first thing they said was “We want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1962.” And my head was spinning i didn’t know what they were talking about but I they knew that that was a possibility and that we would have things in place for that but you know I’m always trying to be the best that I can be and I I feel like I’m playing the best golf of my career right now and you know year ago I don’t know if I would have thought I’d be seventh in the world but I certainly thought I’d be you know contending in tournaments the PJ of America called me um and uh Zach Johnson was on the call and um Seth Wah was the person who called me and he mentioned that he he wanted me to be cuz when I get the call I’m you know I’m thinking I I really want to be on the team and he he first thing he said was we want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer which is a a heavy burden but um you know and I’m also fortunate in if Tiger or Phil or these guys got captaincy at my age they would have done it the same way i’ve just been lucky enough to be you know asked to do this at a younger age all right Keegan Bradley commenting on all those important points that we’re talking about and nothing’s more important than what his opinion is than what his perspective is and again we’re going to dive into this deeper on the show today and we’re going to bring in some people with real credibility players with clubs in hand to comment on the same one of whom was actually on United States Rder Cup team that’s still coming up now to Tommy Fleetwood you know what i I get I get the partisanship and I and I get cheering for people because we are fans andor because he’s a United States Rder Cup captain and all of it was amazing and all of it was a great deal of fun but where there is a winner there is a loser where there is triumph there is tragedy in that case it was Tommy Fleetwood and I think you’d have to be pretty heartless if you didn’t feel for Tommy Fleetwood difficulty there is is when you’re watching a competitive competition in my humble opinion there were really two things there is execution and did you do what you needed to do at the time that you needed to do it but there’s also strategy and was there a failing there with Tommy Fleetwood and two bogeies in the final three holes we really saw a combination of both more important perhaps in any of this is where does Tommy Fleetwood go from here i think um you know when when it sort of calms down um you know I’m upset now I’m gutted uh I’m angry um when it calms down look at the things that I did well look at the things that I can learn from I I said yesterday I haven’t I haven’t been in this position all year um so it’s been a while felt like I did a lot of good things um but there was things that I you know definitely can do better and I have to do better so um you know I um I did I did plenty of things well enough this week to uh uh to win and I didn’t do that it hurts um but you know when it when it calms down uh the you know the most stupid thing to do and the worst thing to do would be make this make a week like this a hindrance to what you do going forwards i obviously played great i put myself in a great position i was leading the tournament of 71 holes um I just want to you know make sure that I can put myself in this position as soon you know as soon as possible again and and try and correct what I did this time but like I say you know um you know right now I would love to uh you know just go and sulk somewhere and maybe I will do but I um there’s just no point making it a negative for the for the future really and take the positives and move on tommy Flewood easy to be a fan of that man okay we’ve got a lot coming up when we come back I want to go down the road with a major championship in the week that was as well hear from the winner and also hear from some of the players and it was it was the second consecutive week in which a major championship and a large part of the discussion was not about the quality of golf shots that were struck or heroic shots and we had all of those instead it was about subjects like setup and somehow when players make comments about that on the outside looking in people tend to discount it brush it away say “Why are they being so whiny it’s a major championship they’re supposed to be difficult.” I think there’s merit in listening to what the best in the world have to say because I don’t think it’s always just self- serving we’ll get down to that point in others as the Fairways of Life show continues ben Hogan Golf is making some incredible equipment and I’m sure there is equipment that you would love to slip into your bag both because of its technical design the beauty and artistry of how it’s designed look at these gorgeous irons and perhaps equally as important how much pride would it give you to put a set of irons into your bag that is etched with the iconic signature of Ben Hogan benhoganolf.com head down water down the left walker down the right take the club straight back wandering minds when golfers lose their focus they’re totally but Bridgestone can help introducing mindset the ball scientifically designed to keep you focused first identify your target next visualize your shot path and then focus on the green dot and smooth one play the 2B and E12 with Mindset technology see what happens when we work together stuff like that flight Scope Meo Plus is the ultimate indoor and outdoor golf launch monitor and simulator it gives you the club and ball data you need with the accuracy you demand meibo Plus comes with ownership of simulated golf courses for you to play and practice at home meivo Plus is an essential golf partner to help you improve and understand your game better put more purpose in your practice to learn more and get your MEO Plus shop now at flightcope.com offers today are a different breed who me we see the game in a different way [Applause] we all have our own style we swing our own swing but we have one thing in common we are all about the details introducing the Revel line of grips from Superstroke with three distinct offerings to choose from the Revel is in the details our journey began with a simple yet powerful vision to provide the world with the highest quality Virginia type peanuts the Hubard Peanut Company where quality and tradition meet to create an unforgettable experience visit hubspanuts.com to explore our full range of products and place your order today [Music] [Music] middle market businesses are facing unprecedented shifts which demand tailored solutions and decisive action rsm stands as the unwavering leader of the middle market empowering you to take charge of change and conquer this era of transformation rsm experience the power of being understood [Music] uh it feels pretty amazing um I feel like I really deserve this one um and I put a lot of hard work into it so yeah I feel I feel really good i think every single day it was a bit of a grind um even yesterday’s score I had three under and today I had what two over wait did I have two over three over two two over um but I feel like they were all equally as important like I needed to do them on those certain days to ultimately have that um trophy um in my hand come today so um yes I feel like today today’s score um I had to really dig deep for it but I feel like I was pretty solid over the four days to you know um have this trophy in my hand now the next thing is Evian I guess um that’s my next stop on tour so um you know my I don’t really set goals that um like I’m going to win three majors or you know trying to have three wins or I I just stick to more of my processes and you know one of my big goals was to get the the putter um improve improve on the putting stats so I think I’ve been doing that and um so I’m just you know taking it one step at a time i’m gonna enjoy this win and then I’ll um sit down with my coach and you know talk to him on the phone um see where we are going to go after this one i mean that is my ultimate goal like I really wanted to be in the Hall of Fame that’s why I started golf and um that’s why I wanted to be on the LPJ tour to you know win a bunch of tournaments and try and get into it um but seeing Lydia do it I think it just you know I would really like to get there but we’ll see how we go after after this week mi is just such class you know her swing has always been so perfect so great to watch so elegant it’s kind of an ethereal golf swing but now that she’s got as she called it the broomstick that that she’s using with the putting if that part of her game can start to get close to what she does with the full club in hand then watch out for Miy Lee one of the things that I’ve enjoyed with Mi in particular is that as we’ve gotten to know her brother better I think it’s allowed us to get to know her better because you’re getting to know family dynamics very very cool indeed all right now the other subject that I was teasing about as we were heading to break is the conversation about the course and course setup and I tend to believe that in life when things are overdone it tends to come out of insecurity do you understand what I’m talking about things are things are a little bit too fancy a little bit too much a little bit too that generally when you when you start to break it down there there’s an insecurity that that’s someone or something is trying to overcome now I get that this is a brand new golf course and that they’re still trying to figure all of this out because it’s going to be hosting the PGA Championship a couple years down the road but in particular when when a golf course is set for competition as to it relates to amongst other things around the green complexes i remember one time I was doing an interview with Tom Do and I said “Well I think I think the green design tends reflects an architect’s insecurity.” And Tom Do said to me ‘What did you say and I repeated it i said ‘I tend to think that green designs tend to reflect an architect’s insecurity he paused for a second and he said I got to think about that i think he was slightly offended by what I said but but that is my honest opinion and I think that here we were two weeks in a row and I just think the conditions the setup of the golf course was overengineered and from that standpoint there there’s a there’s a general belief that when a golf course is incredibly difficult somehow that identifies you go back to the Sandy Tatum quote right are are you trying to embarrass the the best players in the world no I’m trying to identify them or trying to identify them paraphrasing but I just think that sometimes it can be over overengineered to a point where instead of identifying truly the player that’s playing the best I’m not taking any way away from MJI because I think she was playing the best it worked but it doesn’t always work because sometimes circumstance is now dictated by a twist of fate instead of pure execution remember that conversation I had with Tommy where you’ve got two things that go into a a champion down the stretch in my view it is execution obviously but it’s also strategy so I do think the opinion of the best players in the world are important i don’t think that players just because they’re the best players in the world are for some reason guilty for something which is the impression you get sometimes when you look across social media where seemingly the conscious of the game has been adopted by people who never were inside the ropes at this level so it’s important to listen to them here’s what the women themselves said i think the course on most of the holes are designed to bounce in the front of the green and then go up but then with it being a major and trying to challenge us I think they grew the grass up and with the Bermuda it it gets really sticky and so you can’t just like roll it up on the green so you have to carry it but then obviously with the green being firm and the weather being hot um it just kind of rolls off it’s hard there’s a lot of decisions to be made um I just it’s just a bottleneck when it gets to 7 8 9 yeah seven’s seven’s a demanding one even if you’re 20 yards for them green i mean I had a I think a 36y pitch shot today and it’s not quite sure if you can stop it on the green so it’s just going to take more time than than a normal shot and same same eight is a very demanding t-shot nine if you people going for the green it just it just takes time and it’s just yeah it just gets a little bit of a bottleneck i mean I think we played a two ball in like six hours i mean that’s just a little ridiculous but what can you do so uh just told myself to be patient i just think it’s with the the with the weather it’s just too firm the whole locations are kind of in almost impossible positions where you know not many people are hitting the green so obviously it’s going to take a lot more time and with it blowing 30 miles an hour it’s just it’s hard it’s tough it’s a major so it’s a given um but I think it does get to a point where some um pins just quite didn’t match the wind conditions so um that makes it extra extra tough but you know everyone’s in the same boat so you just kind of got to cop one in the chin oh the wind the wind for sure um and the heat it wasn’t even like the golf course layout itself i mean I think it was it was fine it’s just it was just the wind was so heavily influencing the ball that the pin placement some of them just felt like you just couldn’t get near it so I think just the wind was the biggest factor this week all right newtonolfco.com is a website that you can log on to and you can see their new motion golf shafts it’s so important to realize that when a graphite shaft is made it’s essentially rolled through its various components and this has to be done with precision this has to be done with the expertise so that you get consistency throughout that is their symmetrical 360 degree design the whole idea of Newton golf shafts is that what they call 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Travelers Championship he was seventh on tour in strokes gained putting and he has at various times over the last few years led the PGA tour in putting well we got a chance to sit down with Denny thank goodness we recorded it instead of planning and just doing it live because we had the breaking news last week about a new CEO on the PGA tour so Denny is if you don’t know him very well this hopefully will give you an opportunity to know him a little bit better but I think it also gives us a chance to get inside the mind of a tour player that has the kind of exceptional skills that he has in this particular part of his game obviously he’s good across the board or else he wouldn’t be on the PGA Tour but this is a chance for us to get inside that mind as I mentioned start to understand it’s almost like remember that movie I think it was called The Beautiful Mind where the guy’s got all the different numbers floating around him see if you agree on this one here’s Denny when you go to the range and you try to find that edge again that you’re searching for right now do you start with the tried and true do you start with the putter do you start with the short game and go “Okay I know what my rock is or know what my foundation is now let’s go work on the rest.” No not really because I I feel like that that stuff um is always in pretty good shape it really gets too far off um it’s right now it’s more off the tea I’d say i’ve seen some really good stuff from the irons for the most part um I still want to work on a few things in the iron play um it’s mainly off the tea right now I would say um and I know this place is at a beast but they usually get the rough a little up it’s it’s you know you don’t you can’t spray it all over the place um you can get some good lies and still score from the rough here in places but driving it in the fairway anywhere is is where you want to be playing from and so um that’s how you really attack a place like this is is starting off the tea so um I’m looking forward to you know this is what this is what happens throughout the season it’s it’s hap it happens a lot throughout you know a year where you know you one minute you feel like everything feels good and you got it and golf seems um somewhat I wouldn’t say easy but it it it it comes easier and there’s times where it just feels really difficult and right now is a little bit one of those times but it just takes a little something like that to snap out of that and you know get back to that feeling of feeling a little easier i’m smiling not to not to to find joy in your lament there but because there’s millions of people shaking their head right now going “Yeah that’s exactly what we feel almost on every other shot.” I I have to tell you too because you’re my friend I find it incredibly annoying that here you are saying first of all you’re not technical and when it comes to putting all you guys are saying like I if I ask you the secret of putting you I I expect you’re going to give me the same thing that the Dave Stockton’s of the worlds and the Lauren Roberts of the worlds and they all go “Well the the key to good putting is to not try.” Am I right or wrong uh there’s a little bit of that to that for sure there’s a little bit of it i’d say when when you’re when you feel like you’re hitting good putts and they’re not going in it’s there’s a sense of trying harder or trying to be too careful and I think uh freeing it up and caring less can can help i I equate it to shooting a basketball sometimes like I miss a shot I don’t think about what I did i just keep shooting um and you know I might make a subtle adjustment without even really thinking about so you’re reacting to target yeah I’m re I’m reacting to to target yeah I’m uh um I’ve said it before like I just I my instincts are really good so I try and trust them and when I don’t uh when I doubt them is when I get off I’d say on the greens um so that could just be aiming at a you know you’re hitting a big right to left bender uh that feels most people I would say underreom this feels like I’m aim too low or I need to hit it too hard i mean you can maybe make it on that lower line but it needs to be hit too hard and like my instincts tell me that when I’m setting up like uh this feels like uh I need to hit it too hard uh or I’m aim too low and so then I adjust and maybe like ah that that feels a little too high or I need to hit it a little too soft it might not get there and then I kind of oh this feels just right like this feels like and and my instincts tell me like okay this is the line for the proper pace um and it doesn’t always work out like that but if I can get to that place where I’m doing that and I I can commit to something on each putt I think that’s the people think that you know I don’t have a perfect stroke um and I don’t always read the greens right but I have really good intention and comm commitment to what I’m doing um which I think makes me a really good putter do you think any of what you just described Denny is a natural gift um I think maybe part of it but you know I’ve played for so long uh so much tournament golf so much you know like my eyes just have seen so many putts you know like I’ve played so much golf my eyes see so many putts so like it’s just like it’s almost like a blueprint in my head of what you know a 10-footer a ball out looks like to me you know like I I’ve I’ve seen it and some sometimes other places can be deceiving and tricky um of what that might look like to you but for the most part you’ve got a baseline of what certain putts look like and so it’s funny like my eyes see a right to left really good from the other side of the hole they see it good from the ball but from the other side of the hole I really get a good sense too left to righters I see terribly from the other side of the hole i see it much better from the ball side where I’m actually hitting it from sometimes I don’t even bother i see like way less break from the other side on a left or right and sometimes I and so I know my tendency is is that so if I actually see a break from on a left or right or from the other side I know that it’s probably breaking more than I think or if I don’t see um that much break at all like it’s it’s it might break some or it’s just weird my eyes you know to me like a a straight putt from the other side i actually see it as like going a little right to left it’s just my eyes have seen so many things and I know it’s what my my tendencies are looking at certain putts um and I I know that and I trust that and so it’s I mean I guess it’s that’s hard to teach right but it’s just like I’ve done it so much where I’ve I understand um I understand what it what it feels like and what it what it’s supposed to look like I guess i don’t I don’t know it’s like it almost sounds like the rambling of a madman right now as you’re going to all the different It’d be like It’d be like Steph Curry knowing if he’s fading this way on a three-pointer he knows he knows he needs to shoot it a little farther right like if he keeps drifting and shooting it he’s going to miss it he stinks exactly correct so what putter are you using i use I’ve used the same putter for a while i knew it that’s why I was getting is great putters don’t change putter and sometimes I try and switch and get out of it and sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it’s not but I always end up coming back to it because it’s I’ve hit so many putts with it and I you know I’ve my my hands know the feel of how many putts I’ve and I know it’s tendencies again like my eyes have tendencies reading the greens my putter has certain tendencies on certain putts and so it’s hard to get out of that because I just I know it so well i’m comfortable with it um it’s it’s it’s weird i mean we’re we’re golf golf golfers are crazy man i mean we’re we’re you know we’re not superstitious we’re just a little stious it’s I always like to I always like to uh call that lineup it’s from the office Michael Scott but um yeah we’re we’re we’re pretty crazy breed um everyone’s got their own little quirks um own little ways to try and get better and their own ways on how they see things and so um I just try and trust trust my instincts I’d say as much as I can it’s awesome and I see you’re well represented with your sponsors doing well yeah everything’s everyone’s doing great i got a great team behind me um you know great support system great family um everyone everyone’s done an unbelievable job supporting me to be able to just come out here and hit a a little white ball around so um yeah there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes it’s not just me you know playing golf out here um and so I’m I’m very appreciative of everyone that’s behind me and on my team that’s awesome i hope you find what you’re looking for this week thank you very much for your time thank you see that’s what I was talking about and he did pretty much find what he was looking for the week of the Travelers had his second best performance in his last 11 outings uh Matthew Hagerty is is a coordinating producer here at NBC Sports and Golf Channel and he he sent me this text and he called it the Fairways of Life vibe and it happens to us a lot where you we have a player I don’t know whether it’s because we’re we’re talking about positive things i’m not trying to take credit for it but it happens all the time where you have these players and they start to tell us about who they are and what they do and how they do it and why they do it the way that they do it and then they go out and they play really well that week i hope there’s a connection and I pray that there is but it was really fun to catch up with Denny and I hope you guys enjoyed getting to know him a little bit better when we come back as promised a couple of tour veterans to weigh in on Keegan Bradley and the question of should he or shouldn’t he be on his own team i got ball fit in 2000 went on a 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changes the story a little bit uh I I never would have thought about playing if I hadn’t won and you know this this definitely opens the door to play i I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not but uh I certainly have to take a a pretty hard look at at what’s best for the team and we’ll see we we still got it’s still it’s still June so you know we still got a long ways to go but uh this definitely changes things a little bit and we’ll get we’ll all get together and figure out the best way to do this all right so let’s figure out the best way to do this with our assembled panel today delighted to be joined by Trip Eisenhower you’re familiar with Trip with his work on Golf Channel and otherwise trip has six professional wins to his credit over 300 starts on the PGA Tour 24 top 10s gapgolfcoach.com is his website if you’d like to check out more about what he’s doing in that regard jim Gallagher Jr is joining us as well jimmy has got five PGA Tour wins to his credit he was a member of the 1993 United States Rder Cup team the 1994 President’s Cup team and he has 50 career top 10s to his credit jent great to see both of you guys we brought you on today because we want to go down this pathway of Keegan Bradley should he shouldn’t he a lot of people are weighing i’m seeing a lot of media people talking heads about whether he should be there we want to go from a players perspective trip let me start with you fire away should Keegan Bradley be on this Rder Cup team this year yes absolutely especially if he’s within the points i mean if he’s one of the top 12 there’s it’s a no-brainer i I don’t see how he can’t be given how well he’s playing how well he played and closing um you know when Tommy Fleetwood misstepped uh in Connecticut last week look he should have been on the team in 23 uh let’s just face it i mean he he was very surprised he wasn’t on that team and you know Zach Johnson’s a friend of mine but I I really think um you know going out and picking the guys Spe and and Thomas uh Spe was in the points Thomas was outside at 15th in points um and Keegan was one of those guys who had won a couple of times so you know I don’t think there’s a question really and and you look at Keegan’s RDER Cup record I know it’s a little bit mixed but man oh man you know he plays so fired up in matchplay situations i I don’t even think it’s a controversy i I know Jim’s played in Ryder Cup so I’m going to defer to him as to what the captains have to do but nowadays I think the captain has so many assistant captains that once he’s out playing it’s a bit cathartic for him so he can get out and you know just focus on what he’s doing and I think it could be a distraction from all the the you know permutations and everything that you have to do as a captain it would be a tiring week but I think I don’t think it’s a it’s a question if Keegan’s within the 12 players that he needs to he doesn’t even Well he would have to pick himself if he was outside the top six but I I don’t think anybody’s going to look at that and go he doesn’t belong there yeah and plus Trip I mean if if you had to kind of tuck him away he doesn’t have to go out through five sessions either but all right Jim Gallagher Jr just heard Trip kind of set you up with the question are the demands of the captaincy of the RDER Cup too much is it foolhardy for him to be on the PL team as a competitor uh I would say not in today’s world uh when I played we had one assistant captain uh I think look at the way I’m just telling you I was out there at Travelers couple groups ahead with Rory and just the atmosphere i mean and it’s going to Beth Paige where he’s you know he’s played plenty of golf i think he’s done a remarkable job right up to this point being captain and playing at the level he was trip’s right he should have been on the team the last time we That’s not even an argument there that’s why it was so surprising when they picked him because he was still playing some great golf uh Hell Irwin was my playing captain on the President’s Cup i know it’s a completely different level was the first one and he had Paul Azinger as his assistant captain and it worked out fine i think obviously if he’s in the top six he’s playing to pick himself here’s the problem here’s the deal with that i I would say yes because I don’t know anyone that’s playing any better but if he picks himself and they win it’s great if he picks himself and they lose everybody’s going to hate it so uh you’re kind of in a no-win situation there but at the level he’s playing now and if it continues the next two months yes he has to be playing on the team especially as much as he loves it and I know he wants to still be the captain uh and it can be done he’s got plenty of guys on the side there they’ll have a game plan i think that’s the unique part it’s not like you’re in the president’s cup when you match up the matches that you play against each other you put them in the order you want to put them in and then you hope the other side whatever order they put them in so that’s the tricky part it’s not like you’re matching them headto head you’re putting them in in in the in the first two day the f first four matches and the next four matches they match up so it’s not like it’s one-on-one like in the President’s Cup when if you pick A then they pick B so uh yeah I think he can’t especially looking at the way he’s played just to this level again and still being the captain with all the so-called distractions yeah I don’t see why he wouldn’t and he loves it as much as anybody he bleeds red white and blue as much as anybody and and it’s about I haven’t seen a captain hit a shot yet uh and I think that’s the biggest thing and no disrespect to the captains but it gets down to the players hitting the shots and making the putts and putting them in the best position to win and that’s the captain’s job but he’s got capable guys on the side as well jim the people who are against us when they’re reminded of the fact that the last playing captain for the United States Rder Cup team was Arnold Palmer 1963 will go “Look the Ryder Cup in 1963 with all due respect is not the RDER Cup that it is today but your RDER Cup in 1993 is very close to what it is today in terms of the passion in terms of the emotion in terms of demand and the times in terms of what you talked about an exhausting week which incidentally it’s an exhausting week for everybody involved whether we’re a captain of the team or whether they’re a competitor so from that standpoint can you give me some insight give us all some insight into what you saw were the demands on the captain of your Ryder Cup team would have been Tom Watson in 1993 just give us some of the kind of behind the scenes of stuff that we may not know in terms of pressures that are on that individual i think a lot of that work’s done before they get there but deflecting media deflecting any kind of controversy I think that’s their job uh when things are said or done to kind of diffuse some of the things there were things that went on uh at the Ryder Cup when our golf bags were all in the locker room and when I didn’t play in the morning and paying Stewart’s bag had my pitching wedge somehow in his bag so he would have had 15 clubs i’m not saying someone put it in there on purpose i’m just saying that happened so those things happen behind the scenes uh but I think it’s more about deflecting all the situations that could happen if there’s a controversy or whatever but there’s going to be demands whether you’re a player or a captain i think it’s got to be in Keegan’s mind if he honestly thinks in him himself that yes I can play and I can play at the top level and still be the captain and rely on my vice captains if it’s his decision it’s not our decision whether Yeah but if I look at it today yes he should be playing but it’s ultimately up to him in his mind in his feelings yes I can do it and then he’s got to go do it and he can’t look back you stick to your decision and you go with it yeah to that point Trip I like that Keegan Bradley to to the prospect of him possibly be on the team and there was some indications early on i remember Davis Love III mentioned this to me last time I spoke to him that oh there’s contingency plans in place if he’s able to make it as a player or be on the team as a player i like that Keegan is coming out and going “Look no I’m captain full stop i’m captain i’ve I’ve invested enough in this whether I’m playing or not i do that part of it I do like.” But what I wanted to ask you about Trip was is not his appointment when Seth Wah called him what a year and two three days ago and said “We want you to be on the team.” He told him “We want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.” Isn’t his captaincy about kind of blowing up the way things have been done before and doing things differently i mean even to the standpoint where both of you have said today that he should have been on the last RDER Cup team and with all due respect to decisions that were made some of those decisions in retrospect look like they were made because of who someone was a friend with so they thought they would pair better and the chemistry would be better and da da da and there was talk about even from Keegan himself saying “No I was I’m always kind of on the outside looking in there’s that bit of a chip on his shoulder aren’t we talking about in all of this trip about doing it differently because the way it’s been done hasn’t been working very well at all you read my mind because that’s what I was kind of thinking as as we were going into this uh conversation was this did break the mold and look I mean it it it the mold has been kind of um reinvented a couple of times with um really since the Tom Wat Watson captaincy at Glenn Eagles u and and the US RDER Cup program has really I think evolved and come into a long way but to your point breaking the mold in picking Keegan was exactly that and the fact that a plane captain they were thinking that when they picked him because guess what as we said he probably should have been playing in Rome um two years ago but I do think he’s going to be playing at Beth Page and one other thing we talk about a chip on the shoulder you know he said he had a chip on the shoulder about uh not being or snubbed for a pick last time he plays well with a chip on his shoulder and guess what else you talk about playing well in front of a home crowd that’s pretty much what he’s done at Travelers the last couple of years winning that tournament a couple of times and and how much it means to him and you saw it on Sunday when he marched around that green and imagine him at Beth Page former St john’s player you know he it’s going to have that vibe it’s going to have that same thing but it’s going to be amped up a thousand times from what we saw in Connecticut and Keegan thrives in that environment and I do think absolutely that the fact that when you get all the stuff that you have to do off the golf course I think he’s got he’s got so many people around him that when he gets on the golf course I think it’s going to really hyperfocus him and I think he’s going to contribute now the the the you know the the edge is if he does pick himself and he doesn’t contribute any points he’s going to face a you know tsunami of criticism but he can’t let that affect his decision and again it sounds like Keegan’s not making this decision alone i think he’s going to have a committee of his assistant captains and the six players that make the team they have a big say in this as well but I can’t see any of the six saying “No Keegan you don’t deserve a uniform for playing there you you you know a play uniform.” And I I again for all those things that I said the fact of how well he plays with a chip on his shoulder that’s why we brought these two guys on folks so you can get the perspective from players themselves jim Gallagher Jr trip Eisenhower always a pleasure to have your company guys thank you very much for weighing in on this i’m sure there will continue to be a great deal of discussion as to what Keegan should or shouldn’t do keegan has already implied that the decision though is going to be made with his vice captains the decision though is going to be made through the will of the players on his team uh and I think that’s a great way to do it that shows leadership too doesn’t it that it’s going to be a collective uh he said that they communicate every day and so we’ll see how this ultimately plays itself out there’s one more aspect of this that trip was kind of touching on and that the travelers championship and this crowd and this passionate chanting of team USA USA USA it’s only like 90 minutes down the road to Beth Paige Black awesome day thanks so much for your company folks bye for now