SUTTON, Mass. — Keegan Bradley knew the risks when he accepted the Ryder Cup captaincy.
“If you win, it’s a lifetime honor. If you lose, it’s ‘I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life,'” Bradley said Monday in his first public comments since leaving Bethpage Black last month. “Part of me doesn’t think I’ll ever get through this.”
Bradley, a two-time Ryder Cup player, was named captain of the U.S. team last year and led a loaded squad to take on Europe on New York’s Long Island. Despite the home win giving him an advantage, he fell from 11.5 holes to 4.5 holes heading into the final day. This was the biggest Sunday morning deficit in modern Ryder Cup history.
“You put in so much effort, you made so much planning, and the first two days ended up being as bad as we thought they would be,” Bradley said. Before addressing the team on Saturday night, he needed to step outside the tent and collect himself. “It was pretty emotional. It was sad, to be honest.”
“If you win, it’s the glory of a lifetime. If you lose, it means you’ll have to live with this situation for the rest of your life. Somewhere in my heart I don’t think I’ll ever be able to overcome this situation. . . . This disappointment was very cruel to me. . . . It’s a very strange thing to love something so much and have nothing in return.”
US Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley
The American earned 8.5 points in 12 singles matches on Sunday, closing in on the final score.
Bradley accepted responsibility for several mistakes, including setting up to coincide with rain to make the notoriously difficult course more manageable. Others pointed to his combination, and even his decision to remove himself from the team.
“It’s been one of the toughest times of my life since the Ryder Cup until now,” Bradley said at media day for the Travelers Championship, where he is the defending champion.
“It’s really fun to play in one more game. You never know if you’re going to get a chance,” Bradley said. At 39 years old, Bradley would have been older than everyone but Justin Rose on both teams this year.
“This football thing has been so cruel to me. I don’t know if I want to play. No, I want to play,” Bradley quickly corrected. “It’s a very strange thing to love something so much that it doesn’t give you anything.”
Bradley said he is still trying to get out of the “Ryder Cup fog” and get back to being just one of the top players on the PGA Tour. After being named captain, he went on to win the 2024 BMW Championship, giving him the most individual wins in that span of any American other than Scottie Scheffler with his win at Hartford this past June.
Another captain might have selected him for the U.S. team.
Bradley said there were moments when he wished he had become the first captain to play in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963, but he knows he made the right decision.
“I hope and pray that I have the opportunity to play there forever,” Bradley said. “My first practice day, I was on the tee and I saw all the players walking down the fairway en masse and I said, ‘I wish I had played. That’s all that matters. I’m missing out.’
“By the second or third day, I was like, ‘I wish I didn’t play,’ because physically I was so tired. … I’m glad I didn’t play, because it would have been bad,” Bradley said. “I never thought I’d be able to do both jobs.”
Still, spending the past year as a Ryder Cup captain has given Bradley experience that few others get. Before the players knew whether they would make the team, he felt the love from American fans at tour stops across the country.
“I wasn’t expecting the support,” Bradley said. “In the history of the game, going back to Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, I don’t know if any of them went through what I went through this year.
“I was able to experience something in the world of golf that I don’t think anyone has ever experienced before. I was able to compete at a very high level and win tournaments and compete in tournaments while also being a Ryder Cup captain. And it was just incredible.”
