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Keegan Bradley announced the captain's picks for the U.S. Ryder Cup team on Wednesday, August 27. The world was surprised to see Bradley not being one of the playing 12 after news of him thinking the dual role made rounds post his Travelers Championship win. The eight-time PGA Tour winner chose to prioritize his role as a captain and picked six other remarkable players for the 45th edition of the team event.
Bradley was named to lead Team USA in January this year, and for the longest time, there were no questions about him playing. However, after his incredible win at the Travelers Championship in June, discussions about him playing for the team circulated. If he had picked himself, Keegan Bradley would have become the first captain in 62 years to play for the side after Arnold Palmer assumed the dual role in 1963.
During the press conference, Bradley was questioned about his decision to abstain from joining the playing 12. Standing by his tough decision, he explained:
"Ultimately I was chosen to do a job. I was chosen to be the captain of this team and my ultimate goal to start this whole thing was to be the best captain that I could be. And this is how I felt like I could do this. If we got to this point and I felt like the team was better with me with me on it, I was going to do that."
"I was going to do whatever I thought was best for this team. And I know 100% certain that this is the right choice and these six guys again played so incredibly coming down the stretch here and made my decision a lot easier," he added.
Keegan Bradley went on to say he would call Arnold Palmer if he could for the latter's advice. Bradley's focus is solely on getting the Ryder Cup home, and he wishes to accomplish that as captain.
Keegan Bradley addressed the situation over the past two days before the final announcement
Keegan Bradley named the six players for the 12-player team for the upcoming Ryder Cup. Other than the automatically qualified players, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Patrick Contlay, Ben Griffin, Collin Morikawa, and Sam Burns will be part of the US squad.
When questioned about the decision-taking process, over the past two days, Bradley said:
"The decision was made a while ago that I wasn't playing. The last 48 hours we had the team set. We weren't scrambling at all."
"I would say there was a point this year where I was playing a while ago and you know all these guys stepped up in a major way and played their way onto this team. And that's something that I'm really proud of and something that I really wanted."
Despite dreaming of playing for the U.S Ryder Cup team growing up, Keegan Bradley opted against playing to lead the team to victory.
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