“I think the thing about Keegan is he’s real,” Paul McGinley said after watching a Golf Channel feature on Bradley’s journey this week.
“I think people can identify with him. He’s genuine. If you look at where he came from, the humbleness of where he came from, how he wasn’t a superstar as a kid…
“That piece on Netflix was the best thing we’ve had now in Full Swing in all the two years put together. By far. I mean, that was real. That brought people into the downside of what professional golf can be.
“Everybody sees the glamour and the money and all the stuff that goes with it. So I think people are going to connect. They’re going to rally behind him. I think he’s going to be a guy that’s going to lead with the heart. I think the crowds will identify that.
“We’re very good at playing underdogs and if you want to know why we are underdogs, you’ve got the New York crowd and a leader like Keegan and the quality team that America has. We are under no illusions, no illusions whatsoever about the size of our task.”
Bradley played on losing teams at Medinah in 2012 and Gleneagles in 2014, proving a feisty competitor alongside Phil Mickelson, with four wins out of five against European pairings that included stalwarts such as Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, and Graeme McDowell.
A lone wolf, he was snubbed by Johnson because he didn’t fit the boys’ club vibe the 2023 captain felt best for Rome.
As Jason Dufner, the man he beat in a playoff for the 2011 PGA Championship, once said: “Let’s face it, he’s always been a little quirky, a little weird.”
He’s a different person now, according to pal and assistant captain, Gary Woodland, who believes Bradley’s non-selection for Rome forced him to open up to his peers.
“For him to lead this team, he was going to have to make the effort to connect with the guys, to reach out, to be emotional, be vulnerable,” Woodland told golf writer Alan Shipnuck.
Bradley was a 13-year-old sitting on his father Mark’s shoulders when the Americans won the Battle of Brookline in 1999 — a moment his aunt, six-time major winner Pat Bradley, described as “a defining moment for him.”
“Keegan saw the excitement of that Ryder Cup, and that was the moment when he said, ‘Dad, I want to be a Ryder Cup player someday,'” she told the New York Post of the nephew who has vowed not to unpack his Medinah suitcase until he’s part of a winning team.
“This has been in Keegan’s soul since he was a little boy,” she said of the nephew, whose decision not to pick himself this year has been described as the ultimate team sacrifice. “Keegan was born for this. He has been on this journey since he was a little boy.”
