Keegan Bradley has questioned why Rory McIlroy felt the authority to say that being a playing Ryder Cup captain couldn’t be done after he had recently dismissed the idea of doing so for Europe in the future.
There hasn’t been a playing captain since the 1963 Ryder Cup where Arnold Palmer led the USA to victory at East Lake. But the biennial contest is a behemoth of a competition compared to the 60s, particularly since GB&I was changed to the continent of Europe.
McIlroy had been offered a playing captain’s role at a future Ryder Cup but shot it down instantly.
“I’ve been asked to do that and I’ve turned it down,” McIlroy said when asked whether he thought Bradley could fill the role of a playing captain.
“The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up, and I’ve shot it down straight away because I don’t think you can do it.
“If you’d have said it 20 years ago, I’d say it was probably possible to do. But how big of a spectacle it is and everything that’s on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.”
On Wednesday, Bradley announced his six captain’s picks for next month’s Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black where he ultimately resisted the temptation to pick himself despite winning on the PGA Tour and finishing eleventh in the qualification process.
Instead wildcard picks went the way of Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns.
Bradley insists that McIlroy’s comments or the comments of other players regarding his dilemma did not influence his decision.
“I just am not worried at all about what they do or say. I care about our team. I’m not quite sure how he would know if it’s not possible. No one has ever done it really. I said through this process I wish I could call Arnold Palmer and get his advice. The simple fact is the Ryder Cup is a completely different animal than it was in the ’60s. Even that would be difficult.
“They can make comments on what I can and cannot do. No one would have known. I was confident that if I did need to play, I had incredible vice captains that I could lean on, an incredible team I could lean on. But I’ve said through this process over and over and over, I was going to do what I thought was best for the team, and this was the decision that I thought was best.”
Luke Donald will announce his six wildcard picks for Team Europe on Monday after the Omega European Masters.
