{"id":65937,"date":"2025-08-13T06:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/65937\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T06:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T06:53:08","slug":"why-keegan-bradley-can-thank-jack-nicklaus-for-chance-at-being-a-ryder-cup-playing-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/65937\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Keegan Bradley can thank Jack Nicklaus for chance at being a Ryder Cup playing captain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OWINGS MILLS, Md. \u2014 Keegan Bradley has the support of key players and the opportunity to become the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963 at East Lake.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s all because of Jack Nicklaus.<\/p>\n<p>After the Americans won at East Lake against Great Britain &amp; Ireland \u2014 back then it wasn\u2019t much of a competition \u2014 the PGA of America\u2019s executive committee changed the bylaws so that a captain could not play. It felt the captain\u2019s duties were too extensive.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to Dec. 16, 1982, when the PGA of America appointed 42-year-old Jack Nicklaus to be the U.S. captain. The committee voted unanimously to allow a captain to play.<\/p>\n<p>There were no captain\u2019s picks for the 1983 matches at PGA National. The PGA Championship winner was guaranteed a spot on the team and Nicklaus nearly pulled that off, finishing one shot behind Hal Sutton at Riviera.<\/p>\n<p>Captain\u2019s picks have been introduced, but the rule was left in place for a playing captain. Bradley would have to win the BMW Championship for any chance at the six automatic spots, but there\u2019s that small issue of whether he should pick himself.<\/p>\n<p>Xander Schauffele has told Bradley he needs to bring his clubs to Bethpage Black for the Sept. 26-28 matches. Patrick Cantlay on Tuesday said, \u201cIf I was captain, I\u2019d pick Keegan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u2019s definitely one of the best American players, and his results have shown that,\u201d Cantlay said at Caves Valley.<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"Here\u2019s who is in line for automatic U.S. Ryder Cup spots in final week of qualifying\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/golf\/pga-tour\/news\/heres-who-is-in-line-for-automatic-ryder-cup-spot-in-final-week-of-qualifying\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"Syndication: The Commercial Appeal\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755067988_519_\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The BMW Championship is the final event for players to automatically qualify for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.<\/p>\n<p>Bradley has said he would take it up with the assistant captains and the six automatic qualifiers, the same way he would consider other players as picks.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t make his picks until Aug. 27, after the Tour Championship, giving Bradley two weeks of high-end competition. He currently is No. 10 in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>As for the automatic six picks, Scottie Scheffler, Schauffele and J.J. Spaun are mathematically secured to make the team. They are followed by Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English, with Justin Thomas just outside the top six.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OWINGS MILLS, Md. \u2014 Keegan Bradley has the support of key players and the opportunity to become the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-65937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}