With Keegan Bradley sitting at No. 10 on the U.S Ryder Cup points list (and those outside the top 12 eliciting pretty much a meh reaction as possible additions to the team), the likelihood of Bradley becoming the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in the 1963 Matches has gone from maybe, to likely, to highly probable.
Of course, that also brings with it calls of a familiar refrain: How the hell can he captain and play at the same time?
Digging back into the Golf Digest Archives some 20-plus years, I found a piece by one of my favorite writers, Jaime Diaz, that summed up how I’ve felt for years: that the Ryder Cup captaincy, while an immense honor, is “The most overrated job in sports.”
Acknowledging the many duties involved, Diaz succinctly focused on the meaningful—the golf. He posited that, “The PGA of America and the various conscripted captains may argue that everything being done is in the interest of team unity that will, by extension, lead to greater performance, but let’s get real. The NFL wouldn’t think of asking a coach in the Super Bowl to help with the halftime show. A professional football coach has a huge influence on how his team performs in a game. There are plays to be sent in and matchups to manage and tendencies to exploit. But golf remains the most capricious game in the world, and the most individualistic. There’s a reason Ryder Cup captains look strangely helpless and insignificant as they sit in a cart holding a walkie-talkie— as far as the golf being played in front of them, they are.”
Harsh, but true. There are no timeouts to call. No pinch-hitters or relief pitchers to send in. Once play starts the captain is a cheerleader and Bradley seems more valuable to his team in the role of player than holding pom-poms.
This is not to diminish the importance of the captain, but rather merely pointing out the outsized importance the role has taken on over the years. Wrote Diaz, “With more at stake, too much has been made of the job and its growing minutiae. Ask Jack Nicklaus about being Ryder Cup captain, and he pulls out the time-worn job description for a caddie: ‘Just show up, keep up and shut up,’ he says. “You have to know when to be there, know what’s going on, and keep your mouth shut until it’s time to talk. Being captain is kind of easy.’”
OK, that might have been the case in Jack’s day, but the job today is anything but easy. It’s two years of press conferences and dinners, phone calls and meetings, choosing the wardrobes, setting up fittings, scouting players, recruiting guest speakers for team meetings, deciding on assistant captains and answering endless (and often redundant questions from the media). In short, it is a colossal time suck, but with substantial resources and a handful of assistant captains (seriously, do we need a captain and five assistants for a 12-player team?), there is no reason Captain Bradley can’t delegate the bulk of the busywork and just focus on the pairings while getting ready to tee it up himself.
Still, others will disagree. Diaz spoke to Dave Stockton, the 1991 U.S. captain, who said, “Overrated? I don’t think so. I think it’s one hell of a hard job. I think you have to be hands-on. I think you have to be involved, and I think the team will respond to that.”
Fair enough. But there’s nothing more hands-on than playing for country. Tee it up Keegan—the rest will take care of itself.
With Keegan Bradley sitting at No. 10 on the U.S Ryder Cup points list (and those outside the top 12 eliciting pretty much a meh reaction as possible additions to the team), the likelihood of Bradley becoming the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in the 1963 Matches has gone from maybe, to likely, to highly probable.
Of course, that also brings with it calls of a familiar refrain: How the hell can he captain and play at the same time?
Digging back into the Golf Digest archives some 20-plus years, I found a piece by one of my favorite writers, Jaime Diaz, that summed up how I’ve felt for years: that the Ryder Cup captaincy, while an immense honor, is “The most overrated job in sports.”
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Acknowledging the many duties involved, Diaz succinctly focused on the meaningful—the golf. He posited that, “The PGA of America and the various conscripted captains may argue that everything being done is in the interest of team unity that will, by extension, lead to greater performance, but let’s get real. The NFL wouldn’t think of asking a coach in the Super Bowl to help with the halftime show. A professional football coach has a huge influence on how his team performs in a game. There are plays to be sent in and matchups to manage and tendencies to exploit. But golf remains the most capricious game in the world, and the most individualistic. There’s a reason Ryder Cup captains look strangely helpless and insignificant as they sit in a cart holding a walkie-talkie— as far as the golf being played in front of them, they are.”
Harsh, but true. There are no timeouts to call. No pinch-hitters or relief pitchers to send in. Once play starts the captain is a cheerleader and Bradley seems more valuable to his team in the role of player than holding pom-poms.
This is not to diminish the importance of the captain, but rather merely pointing out the outsized importance the role has taken on over the years. Wrote Diaz, “With more at stake, too much has been made of the job and its growing minutiae. Ask Jack Nicklaus about being Ryder Cup captain, and he pulls out the time-worn job description for a caddie: ‘Just show up, keep up and shut up,’ he says. “You have to know when to be there, know what’s going on, and keep your mouth shut until it’s time to talk. Being captain is kind of easy.’”
OK, that might have been the case in Jack’s day, but the job today is anything but easy. It’s two years of press conferences and dinners, phone calls and meetings, choosing the wardrobes, setting up fittings, scouting players, recruiting guest speakers for team meetings, deciding on assistant captains and answering endless (and often redundant questions from the media). In short, it is a colossal time suck, but with substantial resources and a handful of assistant captains (seriously, do we need a captain and five assistants for a 12-player team?), there is no reason Captain Bradley can’t delegate the bulk of the busywork and just focus on the pairings while getting ready to tee it up himself.
Still, others will disagree. Diaz spoke to Dave Stockton, the 1991 U.S. captain, who said, “Overrated? I don’t think so. I think it’s one hell of a hard job. I think you have to be hands-on. I think you have to be involved, and I think the team will respond to that.”
Fair enough. But there’s nothing more hands-on than playing for country. Tee it up Keegan—the rest will take care of itself.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com