Keegan Bradley: ‘I’ll Never Get Over the Ryder Cup”

Keegan Bradley: ‘I’ll Never Get Over the Ryder Cup”

You know, I’m not sure there’s a more tortured soul in golf right now than Keegan Bradley. Uh the 2025 Brighter Cup captain, longtime PGA Tour player, major champion, won the 2011 PGA, uh one of the four uh professional majors out there. Um golf will will destroy you and lift you up within the same round several times, let alone throughout your entire life. It is the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Um, there are good breaks, there are bad breaks, but you got to play the ball where it lies. Um, and obviously as the captain of the Rder Cup team, it was a disappointing, bitter pill to swallow for Keegan, who went through so much of what he thought was the right things to do to get this team ready to win their first Riter Cup since taking down the Euros at Whistling Straits in 2021 after the devastating loss in 2023. And like, let’s be honest about it. Uh the US RDER Cup team has struggled mightily. You know, since 2008, we’ve only won this thing three times. We won at 2008 at Valhalla, 2016 at Hazeline, and 2021 uh at Whistling Straits. We’ve lost every other time, and the last win before 2008 was 1999. So, the Europeans have dominated. So, if you’re the Ryder Cup captain, you pour your heart and soul into this. And it was especially difficult for Keegan because he’s still playing well enough to have been a member of not only this Rder Cup team but the previous Ryder Cup team in 2023. So it was the uh Travelers Championship media day uh this week and Keegan is considered for lack of a better term the local PJ tour professional. Now the Travelers is held in Crownell, Connecticut, right outside Hartford. Keegan is a is a Massachusetts native. Uh his aunt was a legendary player on the LPGA tour. So he’s sort of their local guy and he’s managed to win this thing a couple of times over the last few years. So he’s the guy they bring in and he always said when he was growing up the Travelers was his hometown tournament. So these are some of the quotes that he had talking about the Ryder Cup experience at the Travelers media day and I I just think it’s a window into his soul and where he is right now. He said, “You put so much into it and have all this planning and the first two days it went as poorly as we could have ever thought. Then we had that amazing rally on Sunday. And here’s the best part or the most interesting part to me. There’s no part of me that thinks I’ll get over this. Since the RDER Cup till now has been one of the toughest times of my life. I’ll forever wonder and wish that I had a chance to play there. The first practice day I was out on the tea and I was watching the guys walk down the fairway alto together and I said, “I wish I was playing. That’s what it’s about. I’m missing out.” But then he said by the second or third day because of the captaincy and the way it was going, I was exhausted. Uh, it’s a good thing I’m not playing. I was so physically exhausted. Good thing I didn’t do it because I would have been bad. I just didn’t think I’d do both jobs. And he finished with this. I really would enjoy playing in one more. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance. This effing event has been so brutal to me. I don’t know if I want to play. No, I do. It’s just a weird thing to love something so much that just doesn’t give you anything. Man, if that’s not a window into a tortured soul, I don’t know what is. Now, I know Keegan a little bit. I’m not going to say we’re friends. We’ve had conversations. We’ve been, you know, we’ve we’ve had some interactions, but this is telling you just how brutal this whole thing has been for him. And look, there are some things that he did that were questionable, right? and we’ve talked about him on this podcast with myself and all the guests that we had on about the RDER Cup, whether it was Brandle Shambbley or Mark Ralphing or Colt No. Um, you know, the the pairing of Harris English and Colorawa and sending him out twice, that was a bad idea. The idea of not playing guys like Sam Burns and JJ Spawn who are incredible putters uh and four ball or excuse me, forsomes or alternate shot. I think those are legitimate things that you can question Keegan on. But the one thing you can’t question Keegan on is his desire and his motivation to win a Ryder Cup for the United States. And that’s what makes what happened uh at Beth Page Black a few weekends ago so disappointing. And the other part of this which is hard for Keegan is that he’s kind of been effed by the last two Ryder Cup experiences. Uh, I think a lot of people were shocked in 2023 when he wasn’t chosen by Zack Johnson to play for the Americans that lost to the Europeans in Rome. He was one of our top 12 players. He has been extremely competitive. You know, the Keegan Bradley stare, if you ever see him when he has a putter in his hand, he’s looking like this. I mean, he’s an intense [ __ ] okay? Perfect kind of player for Ryder Cup. He has a winning record as a Ryder Cup player in the two matches that he played in in 2012 and 2014. Four wins, three losses, not a single match haved in the times that he went out there. So, I I think it really got to him that he wasn’t chosen for 2023 as a player when he was still very much uh at the peak of his career. And so, he wasn’t chosen by Zack Johnson to play in 2023. And that clearly burned inside of him. and it really upset him. So, he gets to 2025 and this is of course when he’s in his early 40s and they make him Ryder Cup captain for 2025 because I think a lot of people thought, hey, okay, we we didn’t choose him as a player in 2023. That was a mistake. That’s on us. How can we make it up to Keegan? How can we make this up to Keegan? Well, let’s let’s make him the captain for 2025. And then what happened over the next two years in 2024 and 2025, I think Scotty Sheffller is the only player on the PJ tour that won more times than Keegan Bradley. And he had that amazing comeback at the Travelers this past year uh where Tommy Fleetwood, who still had not broken through yet with that first win on on American soil or as a member or at a PJ tour event, uh completely messed it up down the stretch and Keegan won that thing for the second time I think in three years again, his home championship. And there he was within the top 12 of the people for the United States team in the point standings. Now the the first six are the only ones that automatically qualify as captain’s picks. Um so you could make an argument that he absolutely should have been playing in the 2025 Ryder Cup as a player and one of the reasons he wasn’t playing was because they wanted to make it up to him for not being a player in the 2023 Ryder Cup. So he kind of got boned, effed, screwed by the RDER Cup twice. He absolutely should have been on the 2023 team and he was playing absolutely well enough and strong enough and consistently enough to be a player for the 2025 Rder Cup team. And you know, I I think if he had automatically qualified, if he had been one of the top six, I think he was around nine or 10. uh if he had been in the top six, I think he would have played, but he had to make a decision. And when he announced his captain’s picks, again, you get six automatic and six captain’s picks. He didn’t pick himself. And the reason he didn’t pick himself, I thought was so telling about who he is as a person, who he is as a player, and who he is as a competitor. He basically said, “They asked me to do a job. They hired me to do the job.” And the job was to be the captain. And he came to the realization and the conclusion that for him to do the best job he possibly could, he could not simultaneously play and be a captain. And and you go read those quotes again today. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to be there. I wanted to do this. Uh you you know I was watching those guys on the first te. I was thinking, I should be out there. I should be out there. That’s what it’s all about. I’m missing out. Yet, when push came to shove, because of the responsibility that they had given him to be the captain, he had to sort of, for lack of a better term, subdue the id, quell the ego, and sort of acquies to what they asked him to do was to be the captain and not a player. And that is brutal. It’s just brutal because twice now this event again which it means so much to him and again he’s had a winning record in this thing. Four wins, three losses in his two previous RDER Cup appearances. Um he got screwed in 2023 by not playing. So to make it up to him, they made him the captain. And by making him the captain, they kind of screwed him again. And that’s just tough. that is tough to take. And now, you know, he’ll be in his closer to his mid4s in 2027 at a Dare Manner. Could he still be a solid player? Yes, we’ve seen many players, especially recently on the European side, be very effective RDER Cup players in their early to mid-40s. Hell, look at Justin Rose this past time around uh the last few times for Ian Palter as a member of the European Rder Cup team in his latter stages. still a very very very effective RDER Cup player, but with all the things that come with being a captain, he he just couldn’t find a way. He he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do the thing that he wanted to do so badly because it would be a disservice in his mind to the job that they had hired him to do. And that last line is just it’s heartbreaking. I really would have enjoyed I really would enjoy playing in one more. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance. This effing event has been so brutal to me. I don’t know if I want to play. And they right away, no I do. It’s just such a weird thing to love something so much that doesn’t give you anything. Look, man, I I hope that he’s playing well enough by the time we make the announcement of who’s on the team in 2027 that he’s on that squad. Now look, if he’s not on the if he’s not playing well enough, there’s no reason to make him a ceremonial pick. Let’s just be honest about it because we need to win the [ __ ] thing, okay? We we need to win the [ __ ] thing and we’re really terrible at winning the [ __ ] thing. Um I do believe he would have helped us at Rome. I certainly believe he was one of the top 12 match play players the United States had going for them uh heading into Beth Page Black, but because of the responsibility that he felt he had been given, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t short change his responsibilities as the captain by making himself a player. And look, I’m sure there are a lot of people out there like, “What the hell did it matter? We got our asses kicked and we had to hang on and we had a great rally, but we still didn’t get it done. So, what good was it that he was the captain anyway?” That doesn’t mean you don’t invest things in this. That doesn’t mean you don’t give your pour your heart and soul into this. There’s I’m sure there are certain captains that didn’t and haven’t and wouldn’t in the past put the time and energy that Keegan put into this. But just because the result was wrong and the result came up short again for the United States, that doesn’t mean Keegan didn’t [ __ ] try his hardest here. He made some bad decisions and we’ve talked about that here. That comes with the process. But I’m not sure anything that he would have changed would have made a difference with the way the Europeans were playing. They were just better. They were just better. In some of those matches, the the US team was 5, six, seven under par and they lost because the Europeans were seven, eight, nine under par. You know, Trent Delford once told me there’s no defense for a perfect throw. And if you’re making pars and birdies, but the other guys are making birdies and eagles, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t play defense. So I don’t engulf I don’t know if there’s anything that he would have done differently that would have changed the outcome because of how way well well the Europeans were playing it because it does mean more to them. I don’t care what anybody says in this event. It does. It means more to them. You’re not going to hear us players say saying I would give up a major championship to secure the winning putt for the RDER Cup which is basically an exhibition. It’s the coolest, crulest, most hostile competitive exhibition there ever is. maybe in all of sport, but would any American player say what Shane Lowry said? I’ve won the Open in Ireland or Northern Ireland and he is Irish and this means more to me. This means more to me. I don’t think there’s an American player that would say that. Maybe Keegan would at this point uh after all the heartbreak he’s had over the last couple of seasons or last couple of times the Rder Cup team has been put together. So I I I just these are the kind of things that haunt people. They haunt them. You know, most players in any sport will tell you about the losses before they tell you about their wins. They are haunted by the mistakes that they made or the shots or the plays they couldn’t pull off more than their trophies, their championships, and the things they won. They don’t remember those things. The best competitors when you ask them about winning, they’re like, “I think I did this, but hey, what happened when you didn’t make the playoff at Deral in 21?” Well, I I flubbed a chip and then I misread the putt. I mean, they’ll tell you everything. This thing is going to stick with him for the rest of his life. As he just said, the only way it could possibly be made better is for him to have an opportunity to play. But then then it becomes even more cruel. Let’s say he plays. Let’s say he plays his way onto the team in 2027. If he doesn’t play well, it doesn’t matter again. And that will continue to haunt him because he knows he knows he was a better player probably in 2023 and 2025 than he’s likely to be in 2027. So, even if he makes the team, and I God God bless it, I hope he does for him to have a shot at redemption because making the team will only give him a shot at redemption. It’s not a guarantee for redemption. Hell, we haven’t won on European soil, the Americans, since 1993. The people producing this podcast probably weren’t even born. Talking to you, Duncan and everybody else, Michaela, everybody else. Katrina, it’s been a while. Okay, it’s been a while. Um, so the odds of us going over there and winning when we haven’t done that in almost 30 years are very small. So even if he makes the team, even if he somehow finds his way to be on that team, and I hope he does, it won’t matter if they don’t win and or if he goes 0 and4 or 0 and three and how many matches he comes out there. This will haunt him for the rest of his life unless he can find a way to not only get on that team, but be a contributing member of a team that wins on European soil for the first time since the Belelfrey in 1993. And the only thing we got going for us in this is that a Dare Manner, if you look at it, it might be the most USfriendly European Rder Cup setup ever. Uh the K Club in the mid 2000s in Ireland was also very uh USfriendly and we got our asses kicked there too. It wasn’t even close. We got blown out when that Ryder Cup happened. Um but a Dare Manner is not Royal Port Rush. It’s not the Belelfrey. It’s not, you know, the old course. It’s not Mirrorfield. It’s not these traditional old style lynx golf courses where the Europeans play the ball on the ground and we as American players play it in the air. It’s a very different type of golf. A dare Manner is very much a course set up to play American style golf, US style golf, PGA Tour style style golf. So you you hope that he makes the team and you hope that not only that he makes the team but he can be a contributor in a winning way to a winning team because making the team and getting the opportunity in 2027 won’t take away this pain. winning winning as a part of that 2027 US team will ease this pain a little bit. But the brutal part of this is is just the way it all went down. He should have been on the 2023 team and they tried to do him a solid by making him the captain in 2025 and they kind of screwed him again. And that’s a hard thing to swallow. And here’s hoping that in two years time, Keegan Bradley will find a way to continue to play as well as he’s played over the last four years, make that team, and be a part of a US squad that wins on foreign soil for the first time since 1993. Everyone loves a Hollywood ending. What better Hollywood ending than that? to see Keegan Bradley be there celebrating in Champagne as a part of that team at 2027 at a Dare Manor in Ireland. I have no idea if it’s going to happen. I have no idea if he can keep playing this well as long as he can. But wouldn’t that be the greatest thing in the world? That would be the capper of all cappers for this tumultuous journey over the last four or five years for Keegan Bradley. Here’s hoping he gets that chance. And that’s straight facts

Keegan Bradley’s Ryder Cup journey has become one of golf’s most painful sagas. From being snubbed as a player in 2023 to being “rewarded” as the 2025 Ryder Cup captain, only to face even more heartbreak — it’s a story that defines loyalty, pride, and the brutal side of competition.

In this episode, Trey Wingo breaks down Keegan Bradley’s latest emotional comments about the Ryder Cup — including his admission: “I wish I was playing. I’m missing out.”

Trey dissects how Bradley’s obsession, loyalty, and refusal to self-pick reveal the true soul of American golf — and exposes the deeper question: why does Europe keep dominating this event?

A raw, fact-driven breakdown of one of the most tortured figures in golf today — and what it says about the heart of the Ryder Cup itself.

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