Collin Morikawa drama + Keegan Bradley wants to be ‘just captain’ — for now | Golf Channel Podcast

In this week’s edition, the guys discuss whether Keegan Bradley can maintain his form through the rest of the PGA Tour season and complicate the Ryder Cup picture, and also dive into an eventful Wednesday for Collin Morikawa with another caddie change and a tense exchange with a reporter. #Golf #GolfChannel #GolfChannelPodcast

Chapters:
0:00: The guys have been all over your TV screens for the last few days
01:30: Keegan Bradley says, as of now, he wants to “just be the captain”
12:30: Lots of drama for Collin Morikawa: another caddie change, in addition to a media dustup
22:00: LIV heads to Dallas for the first of two Open warmup events
26:00: Got questions for Sunday’s show? Hit us up!
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Collin Morikawa drama + Keegan Bradley wants to be ‘just captain’ — for now | Golf Channel Podcast
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hello and welcome into this edition of the Golf Show podcast with Rex and Lav it’s Rocket Classic week it is live Dallas week rex you’ve been doing golf central all week i’ve been doing golf today all week i feel very prepared to talk about whatever it is we want to talk about about the comingings and goings of the PG tour live golf LPJ whatever it is you want to dive into am I going to get recycle takes is that what’s going to happen here we always talk about this when you’re on air for a prolonged amount of time you just start workshopping new stuff and then you just roll it over whatever the next show is just roll it over there is there was a podcast promo that I had to do in the second hour where I was like “Oh wait i’ll be taping that right after we do golf today.” Uh and so during the show today we had a Ricky Fowler presser we had a Colin Mora presser more on that in a little bit but we also had Rex a Keegan Bradley presser keegan Bradley of course the US Ryder Cup captain who is fresh off a victory at the Travelers Championship that seemingly has changed everything because most importantly he went from 17th in the US Ryder Cup point standings all the way to ninth he was not asked directly in his press conference about you know with a couple of days of reflection how do you feel now about the potential prospect of playing on your own team however he did have an interview with Golf Channel’s Amy Rogers on the broadcast when he said “As of right now I’m still planning on being quote just the captain.” If he has settled on that sort of mindset and that mentality for the remaining couple of months of this PG tour season what would be your take on that
um I think he’s probably saying the right thing in that situation if I’m being honest on Golf Central last night talked about just rekindling some hot takes i came to the conclusion and I think it’s fair at this point and it’s based on a point that you made on Sunday night and I hate giving you credit but as much as I hate giving you credit I will on this front that it is not about what Keegan thinks is necessarily best for the team even as the captain this is going to be about what the players think is best for the team and I my guess is strongly that Scotty Shuffler and Kamora and the rest of the players are pretty much already qualified for this year’s team look around the landscape not to take anything away from anyone else and look at Keegan and realize he’s best for the team he’s best as a player not a captain and I will go back to the other recycle tag that I’ve done i don’t think he can do both maybe he can maybe there’s a way you can piece mail this together with the vice captains that’s a different conversation but I think we’re at the point now where he could easily win again but even if he doesn’t I don’t imagine how the players around him the ones that normally have so much say in the decision the ones who qualify for the team they think to themselves that “Nah we can be fine without Keegan Bradley.” Because right now I don’t think that anyone can make the argument that he’s not one of the best 12 Americans
i mean he’s not even one of the best 12 Americans he’s one of the best five Americans that according to Data Golf who has ran the numbers he’s all the way up to a career best seventh in the world again it is incredible remarkable sort of credit to his tenacity his skill his concentration his focus and he’s even put himself in position to potentially be playing golf like it’s it’s amazing how he’s able been able to compartmentalize these two aspects of his life you mentioned what the players want as we sit here on June 25th it’s pretty clear the sound that we ran the players do want him on that team patrick Kentley said “Look we saw Tiger Woods do it he handled it quite uh aly king Bradley could probably do the same thing different animal we talked about that on Sunday korakawa said “Yeah we I think we absolutely want him on the team right now.” One of his assistant captains Webb Simpson said as much like “Hey we need him on the American team.” The reason why I would still stress caution and patience and sort of the a want a need to pump the brakes here is that there are three months left until we get to the RDER Cup and there are four consequential tournaments left in this golf calendar until we get to that point there’s the Open Championship and there are the three FedEx Cup playoff events keegan Bradley is ninth in the point standings keep in mind two years ago when he won the Travelers Championship he moved inside the top six and he would have been an automatic qualifier didn’t do much for the rest of the season ended up sliding all the way to 11th this is an entirely different animal and so if Keegan Bradley does not play well in those four consequential tournaments keep in mind he has never played well at the Open Championship probably owing to his highball flight he’s never played uh TBC Southwind host site of the FedEx Stude Championship particularly well either if he does not play well in those four consequential events he’s going to slide down the rankings probably thinking that an Andrew Novak or Maverick McNeely or a Cameron Young who’s been trending nicely could certainly win this week at the Rocket Classic those players could leapfrog him and make this a moot point if Keegan Bradley is all of a sudden 11th 12th 13th in the point standings I think you can make the case that he would probably more be more replaceable as a player if he sits here at ninth if he moves up in the standings I think it’s an entirely different conversation but I think Keegan has done the right thing in sort of stressing patience there’s a long way to go and a lot of golf still to be played there really is but again I go back to the idea that this didn’t come out of nowhere to maybe you could make the argument late last year that that that almost felt like it came out of nowhere although I think he was playing solid going into that victory as well this time he’s been playing well he played well at the US Open he played well at the PGA Championship i can imagine it is not a stretch to think that maybe he notcheses one more victory before all is said and done and it becomes the argument that I had last night on golf central and you’re right maybe I’m being a bit of a prisoner of the moment on this front however this now seems like a logistics question like to in my mind the question of him playing or not playing isn’t even a conversation anymore this is about how do you make it work fine you want to call him the playing captain okay but there has to be some sort of logistics there has to be some sort of administration of how these decisions are going to get made in real time while he’s in the middle of a match who’s going to make those decisions which one of the vice captains steps up how much say is he actually going to have in golf course setup how much say is he going to have and who who else gets picked how much say is he going to have in pairings right now we’re at the point where he I think you need to start sitting down with the PG of America and the team that you know is going to be on I mean the players you know are going to be on that team and come up with exactly what that blueprint’s going to look like i think it’s interesting because I think you can do it where John Wood the new US team manager can assume a lot of the administrative duties sort of in the run-up and he’s certainly he’s you know he’s been bearing that burden uh for the past couple of months i think you can hand over the majority of sort of the on-site duties to a Jim Furick who’s been there before he’s captain it he’s in the back room staff now he just uh capped the President’s Cup a year ago i think you can have you know a Web Simpson a Kevin Kizner Snedeker sort of um getting into a situation where he also take a second and I’ll filibuster while you send the light off
he’s also visual medium you may want to
he’s also taken on added responsibility so I do think it can be done i think the question though Rex is why why would you do it just for the sake of history just for the sake of legacy just for the fact that you can say that Keegan Bradley is the first playing captain since 1963 that’s not a reason to do it because if Keegan Bradley is only going to play two or three times you can find you know a host of other players a half dozen other players who can do that who can get you a point and a half if you’re going to play two or three times i would rather have someone who is wholly in Yes i I absolutely I’m full of confidence that that a Ben Griffin if you te it up and you give him three matches he could squeeze out a point and a half at home if you particularly if you put him with what the analytics analytics team says is a good partner i have no problem with that whatsoever it’s why would you divide someone’s attention and focus intentionally when it just it just seems like an unnecessary risk to me either do one or do the other but doing both and doing so sort of half-heartedly doesn’t make any sense well I think we’re saying the same thing essentially please go turn your light back on you look ridiculous it looks You look like you’re being held against your will so I’ll go ahead and gas just long enough for you to do this i think we’re both saying essentially the same thing we’re just maybe saying it in a little different ways because what I’m arguing here is that I think it’s at the point now and and you’re right there is still plenty of golf to be played even over the next six seven eight weeks before we get to the point where selections have to be made right now in this moment in time i would argue that you’re right he’s not one of the 12 best Americans he one of he’s one of the six best Americans based on
as we sit here at June 25th again major championship who do you want on that team and I’m not I’m not going to disparage Ben Griffin or anyone else that’s sort of on the outside right now because that’s what I’m going to do tonight on Central if I had to build a team right now who would be the picks and I would put Ben Griffin on that team totally however however when it comes to Keegan Bradley he he clenched the point last year at the President’s Cup i know it’s a different animal but you see the passion that he has when he has played in the RDER Cup before a decade ago alongside Phil Mickelson you saw the passion and what he brought to it he is essentially the American side’s Ian Palter when Ian Poulter was still Ian Palter so I I would argue as it stands right now he is much more beneficial to that team as a player and that could certainly change if that’s going to be the case though I’m speaking more just from an administrative standpoint from the logistics point of view where if you’re in the back office right now we need to start thinking about exactly what these protocols are going to look like when Keegan is in the middle of a match on Saturday afternoon and we need to come up with the pairings for the Saturday or I’m sorry Saturday morning and we need to come up with the pairings for Saturday afternoon’s matches who’s going to lead that way because you’re right he can’t be distracted you can’t walk out in the 13th fairway and show them the card and ask him you go with us like this is what we’re going with like that I don’t think is an option that you can pull off and so someone is going to have to take the baton and they do this anyway
or or does or does Keegan just only play in the afternoons
uh I I guess that would be one way to do it i I don’t necessarily think as a captain you would want to shoehorn yourself though saying that oh I this guy could only play in the afternoons because of something that has to do
he’s probably only going to play in four balls anyway if history’s any indication
probably probably i I would say that they do this anyway like you allow vice captains to give advice on par threes for example and you just pass it along and there’s a referee kind of in the middle that understands that someone else has the paton now he can go give advice and Keegan Riley has given that ride up it would be something similar to that would be my guess whether that’s Brandt Snedker or Web Simpson or whoever else is in the back office but I keep coming back to the idea that the modern rider cup and I understand what Patrick Canley was saying about Tiger Woods at the President’s Cup that is an entirely different animal it was a President’s Cup in Australia there is not nearly the pressure or the demands on your time or everything else that goes into being a captain
it’s one session each day
you have plenty of support the PGA Tour is completely there behind you this you’re kind of on your own and I think I have we have had these conversations you and I with previous captains i’ve had this conversation with Jim Furick you and I both have had it with Paul McInley the job in the modern era is so intense and requires so much exacting uh uh knowledge so much exacting decisions that I just don’t know how you can do both and be affected at and I and I think a lot of golf fans and golf observers are thinking about the best case scenario that here’s a guy who’s playing good golf here’s a guy who clearly has a heart and passionate desire for the event you know let him let him just go run free and fire up the the crowd with birdies and and let him earn some points what if he doesn’t what if he as a playing captain he does not play well if he’s not firing up the crowd with birdies all of a sudden you have just handed out a silver plate to the Europeans not just a point because one of the US players did not play well you have also then defeated the captain and the potential rush that that could give them sort of taking of the head off of the king so to speak and so I think there’s a psychological boost when you look at that respect as well like we’re always looking at just the positive well he’s he’s going to continue to play well because that’s what he’s doing right now it’s 3 months down the line form E es and flows i do think Keegan Bradley at least at this point on June 25th is saying the right things that let’s give it some time as of right now I would just like to be the captain one of the other players in the mix this week in Detroit Rex who has certainly come under some scrutiny over the past couple months is Kor Morawa who once again split with a caddy first it was JJ Jackovac on Tuesday it was reported that he has now split with Joe Grryer who had filled in uh over the past five tournaments all made cuts however he has not had a top 10 Morawa in his last eight tournaments he’s had a pretty decorated career this is tied for the longest stretch he has ever gone without a top 10 finish he’s sparring with reporters in a press conference setting what do you think is going on here with one cola i mean he’s clearly not pleased with his game and I would point to Joe Grinder who is one of the the absolute best caddies in the game and it’s it’s the old cliche that there’s only two kinds of caddies on the PGA Tour those who have been fired and those who are about to be fired you can say the same thing about swing coaches and fitness guys and everything else down the line once something starts going wrong inside that chain inside the players chain of his universe he’s going to start picking away things that he feels like is going to be this if I get rid of this and put a new one of those in there that it’s going to fix everything because what the player can’t do and this is understandable i I I don’t particularly agree with it all the time but the player can’t look himself in the mirror and be like “Yes I’m the problem i’ve got to try to fix this.” Like sometimes you have to kind of turn and deflect a little bit and more times than not the Caddies or the swing coaches end up taking the brunt of that that sounds like what’s happening here joe will not be unemployed for very long i I think the bigger component
he won with Justin Thomas at the Heritage and as a as a fill in
he is a He’s a great caddy just like JJVIC before him they’ll land on their feet they’ll end up with really good bad soon this has nothing to do with them i think the bigger issue is what you sort of glossed over a little bit and I actually have did not see the press conference you did doing it during golf today but it’s it’s an exchange between Kamorawa and a reporter from Goffweight their colleague of ours Adam Shupac and I’m going to let you do the read yeah so this was towards the end of the press conference where the reporter Adam Shupe asked him uh asked Colin as you can see on the screen here if you’re following along on audio I’ll try to summarize it for you that you know do you know who was going to caddy for you at the Open Championship this is just supposed to be a oneweek fill-in for Korakawa’s uh former college teammate KK Limbasuit his his former teammate at Berkeley he’s actually a cornfairy tour player tried a Monday qualifier did not able to get through this week and Ky Morawa said “I don’t.” And then Colin seemed to take issue with how Adam Shupe went about trying to get that story and it appeared on Twitter at golfweek.com earlier today with confirmation from Colin that this was that they had split with Joe Grryer he was going a different direction he had the oneweek film with KK this week and he didn’t know what was happening going forward but he also included a quote did Shupac essentially saying I’m trying to be with my uh prom partners right now i will answer your questions any questions you have in about 2 and 1/2 hours shupac apparently approached Kamorawa on the first te of the prom to try and get confirmation rex you and I have been doing this job long enough can you explain to uh listeners and viewers why a PJ tour player might take exception with that and what is just sort of the general protocol between a reporter and a player during a proam round if you’re trying to get some information well and first and foremost I don’t think Colin Morau appreciated how the narrative was maybe framed in Adam Shupac’s story about he seemed to send the message that no I don’t want to talk to you i want to play in the proam right now so I think there’s a bit of a disagreement between Shupac and Morawa on that front and I would encourage everyone to go read the story and decide for yourself not to take sides as far as how the protocols work it’s very clear on the first hole of a playoff i mean on the first hole of a proam that’s not when you go up and talk to a player i will say that over the years I have learned that proams are the perfect time to talk to players but if it’s a nine and nine which this week was which meant that you’re only going to play nine holes and another pro is going to step in and when you make the turn if it’s a nine and nine you usually go out and you try to find them on the seventh or eighth T yep and by that time they have done everything they needed to do with their amateur partners and look don’t don’t mix this up playing in the proam is part of the job this isn’t fun for a lot of players but they understand that it’s a important part of the job it creates revenue for the tournaments it also creates relationships between players and more times than not corporate sp potential corporate sponsors like there’s a lot of reasons for players to embrace the proam as an important part of their job in this particular instance I feel like Kora was doing just that where he is on the first te and he has three proam partners and it’s his job to essentially keep them entertained over the course of the next two and a half hours or nine holes now normally that only is going to last six or seven hours the PGA tour going to the 99 format I thought was one of the most brilliant things that’s ever come out of Pontabra Beach because most prom partners they don’t want to spend five hours with the same pro they would much rather split it up and to get two pros i get to ask this guy the same questions I ask that guy maybe he has a different personality
but players but but player players are more engaged because they know it’s only a two and a half hour commitment as opposed to five and a half exactly and so the protocol here and again I would refer to the idea that over the course of our careers we’ve discovered that the proam is a really good time to go out and talk to players in a less formal setting probably largely off the record just about any number of topics you don’t do it on the first T you wait until they get to the sixth T or the seventh T the eighth T whatever the case may be and you also keep those conversations relatively short i don’t think I’ve ever gone more than one hole with a player just talking about whatever it is I wanted to address and then send them on their way because they still have a job to do with the proamps and so I I think there is things that there were probably stop signs here that Adam just simply ran through yeah i mean I’m always cognizant of when players are on the range and they’re clearly working on something and they’re in the middle of a you know a deep dive with their swing coach that’s not the time to cidle up there and ask questions the first day of a proam wouldn’t be the time to ask questions it could be before the proam you know when the when the the pro is is getting ready on the putting green if if if it actually rose to a situation where it’s that urgent that you needed an answer at that point i would not say that Kamora changing caddies again would rise to the level that that would sort of need that sort of intervention again you wait till 7 8 9 uh give the proing give the prom playing partners opportunity they’re paying a lot of money to be in that setting it’s just it’s just like a general respect thing um that that clearly Colin Morawa felt uh was was violated here i I also think Rex that Colin Morawa is clearly sensitive to how he has been portrayed over these past couple of months as sort of the poster child for a player who is stiff arming reporters in the media stemming from what happened on Sunday at Bay Hill and I brought this up uh on golf today where it’s it’s easy to look at that as sort of an isolated incident and a player who is is clearly steamed because he just kicked away the tournament he doesn’t want to talk he doesn’t want to talk to reporters he doesn’t want to talk to anyone at that that happens all year long that happens in every other sport lebron James doesn’t talk after every single loss if he if if he has a bad game something goes down the wire he will sometimes blow out of there before reporters get into the locker room this happens in every sport all year long so I I sort of I sort of understand what happened there with K Morau what people forget is that two days later at the players championship we asked K Morau like a dozen questions about his inability to close out tournaments and he was terrific he was introspective uh he was really thoughtful about it he did not um stiff he wasn’t rude like yes he made the comment but I don’t owe you guys anything but he was still sitting there in the press conference he was still answering all the questions it’s just I I think he’s pushing back against sort of this perception that people now have about him and I think it’s it’s fair and he’s understandably pissed that this is how he’s been portrayed
what’s going on with the lights have we not paid the bills in Connecticut what what’s happening there
it’s clearly if I sit still long enough for like 10 minutes the light is going to go off and so we probably we probably need to wrap up this podcast sometime in the next 10 minutes but please carry on the conversation while I address this once more
go ahead i’ll gas back for a little while longer because I to your point yes i I and to be fair because I feel as if the narrative on this front between the media and the players has gotten a little exaggerated and by that I mean Rory Maroy being the primary example when he went six consecutive major championship rounds without speaking to the media lost in that is the fact that he did pre-round press conferences both at the PGA Championship he did them in New Orleans when he was there for the Zurich Classic he did it at the US Open so it’s not as though they’re not talking to the media and I probably leaned into it a little bit more than I should have on Sunday night only because Tommy Fleetwood coming off the heartbreaking loss at the Travelers Championship took the time to speak with the media and sort of crack the egg open and let us see all all of the pain all of the suffering all of the tears and that’s sort of what we want as reporters we want to be able to tell that story to the public and let them know that this is so important to Tommy and hear how he was i believe the words he used are hurt and angry and it’s going to take me a while to get over this those are the stories that we want to tell i’m with you i understand it when a player doesn’t want to tell those stories afterward when it’s still too raw too fresh i think the only thing I would say that Kamora was guilty of is maybe tone at the players championship when he said that I don’t owe you anything that comes off as a little grading probably comes off as a little self- serving but the fact of the matter is and I’ve said this repeatedly he doesn’t none of them owe anything to the media i have argued however that they do owe something to the fans and the corporate sponsors and the tournament organizers who go out of their way and work all year long to create this one week out of the year for them but they don’t owe anything to the media i hope that that part of the podcast was educational for folks who might be confused about why Kamora would take exception with that and what sort of the protocol is between a media and a player during a proam rex one other tournament of note this week is live golf Dallas being played at Merido this is one of two tournaments that live golfers have uh in advance of the open championship also playing uh in Spain the week prior to going to Royal Port Rush it’s going to be blazing hot temperatures at Merido we certainly know that but any live golfers in particular that you want to track over these next couple weeks as we look ahead to the year’s final major
well yeah i think Bryson D Shambo is one of still one of the most compelling figures in the game and I wouldn’t necessarily pick Royal Port Rush as I started the season as somewhere where I expect him to
never played well in an open
he has never played well in the open and like I think this goes to the heart of what Bryson Dshambo is he hates variables he wants to get rid of all the variables that the game presents to him and Lynx golf is nothing about and is about only about variables where you don’t know exactly what the wind’s going to do you don’t know exactly what the ball is going to do when it hits the turf as it bounces you don’t know where if you’re going to end up in one of those pot bunkers and have a shot out or have no shot whatsoever that entire brand of golf I don’t think is something that he embraces right now i have always pointed to how I would have said the same thing for the vast majority of Phil Mickelson’s career right up until he won an Open Championship so I do think there is still plenty of runway for Bryson to find a way to figure out Link’s golf however I’m not sure if this is the year but yeah I mean I think he’s probably one of the top two or three compelling figures in the game right now
uh he certainly is again I don’t have money and I don’t have many expectations as it relates to Bryson and the Open Championships i’m going to focus on a couple other players there is a spot Rex uh in the open available for the highest earning live player among the top five who is not already eligible so Walke Neman’s already wrapped up his spot bryson John Ram have already wrapped up his spot right now if it ended today that spot would actually go to Sergio Garcia which is notable for a couple reasons he didn’t play uh in the US Open the first time in about 25 years they did not play in our national championship also with the RDER Cup prospects uh he Sergio Garcia has not been playing his best golf over the past couple months after being in pretty good form for about a year that would be another opportunity to show uh Captain Luke Donald show the other players on the team that he still has the goods and still would warrant potentially a pick for that European Rder Cup team heading back to Beth Paige Black i look Rex also at John Rom who his major championship record uh this year looks awfully good t14 at the Masters had a great weekend there obviously we know what happened at the PGA Championship was tied for Lee with nine holes to go at Quail Hollow before sliding back in the back ended up finishing in joint eighth and also the US Open started out hot battled back had a good Sunday uh final round as well ended up finishing in a tie for seventh john Rom is too good to have gone this long against lesser competition and less competition in general on live golf without a win in 2025 it feels like he’s trending towards something big perhaps that starts this week at Live Dallas also live and Lucia uh in Vorama Beckens as well in Spain obviously you know John Rom is going to be up for a home game all right that is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel podcast with Rex and Lab you guys know the drill nbcports.com/golf for all latest news notes and updates rex and I’ll be back on Sunday night for a full 52minute edition if you have some questions for that podcast show related to the Rocket Classic Live Golf Dallas anything else that is on your mind feel free to hit us up in the YouTube comment section we will get to it on the show we’re going to have plenty of time to fill folks all right thanks for listening thanks for the support enjoy the rest of your week and we’ll talk to you guys on Sunday