was the surprise pick<\/a> to lead the U.S. squad in July 2024. He was offered the position without an interview after Tiger Woods had put off a final decision on the role before finally turning it down.<\/p>\n![\"Keegan]( "\\"Keegan")
<\/p>\n
Bradley (left) had to ride out a difficult weekend alongside his assistant captains, rather than competing inside the ropes. \/ Paul Childs-Reuters via Imagn Images<\/p>\n
An eight-time PGA Tour winner, Bradley, 39, had not been part of a U.S. Ryder Cup team since the 2014 defeat at Gleneagles. He had also played on the 2013 Presidents Cup team and was also a player on that team last year after being named captain.<\/p>\n
“You put so much into it, and you have all this planning, and the first two days went as poorly as we could have ever thought,” said Bradley, whose team lost all four sessions the first two days and trailed 11\u00bd to 4\u00bd going into singles. He said the deficit was daunting enough that he had to pull himself together before addressing the team Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty emotional. It was sad, to be honest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The American side lost only one match outright on Sunday and earned 8 \u00bd of the 12 points to make it close.<\/p>\n
Afterward, Bradley took blame for not setting up the course more favorably for the Americans, which is the right of the home team.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also been second-guessed over various pairings and strategy\u2014although his top players Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay went a combined 3-10-2.<\/p>\n
“Since the Ryder Cup to now has been one of the toughest times in my life,” Bradley said of the three-week period. “I really would enjoy playing in one more. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley is ranked 14th\u00a0in the Official World Golf Ranking. The qualification period for the 2027 Ryder Cup, if the previous system is in place, would begin with the 2026 major championships. Those would be the only events next year that will count in the ’27 points race.<\/p>\n
At the end of the qualifying period this year, Bradley was 11th\u00a0in points and almost certainly would have been picked had anyone else been the captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll forever wonder and wish that I had a chance to play there,” Bradley said. \u201cThe first practice day, I was out on the tee, and I was watching the guys walk down the fairway all together, and I said: ‘I wish I was playing. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. I\u2019m missing out.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the second or third day I was like, \u2018It\u2019s a good thing I\u2019m not playing,\u2019 because I was so physically exhausted. … Good thing I didn\u2019t do it because it would have been bad. I just didn\u2019t think I could do both jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley expressed appreciation for the support and saw how much it meant to people as he played at a high level through the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis effing event has been so brutal to me. I don\u2019t know if I want to play. No, I do,” Bradley said, correcting himself. \u201cIt\u2019s such a weird thing to love something so much that just doesn’t give you anything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keegan Bradley is still wrestling with the aftermath of the United States\u2019s defeat at the Ryder Cup, lamenting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-230735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}