United States captain Keegan Bradley has defended the decision to pay American players for playing at this week’s Ryder Cup.<\/p>\n
The 12 members of the home side at Bethpage Black, plus Bradley, will each be awarded 500,000 US dollars (\u20ac424,000) after the event.<\/p>\n
Of that amount, 300,000 US dollars will be donated to a charity of the individual\u2019s choice with the remainder handed to them directly. There had previously only been a charitable element.<\/p>\n
European players are not paid for their involvement.<\/p>\n
The change in policy by the US comes after a furore at the last event in Rome two years ago when Patrick Cantlay did not wear a team hat, reportedly in silent protest at the lack of a personal payment.<\/p>\n
He was subsequently goaded by European fans and tempers eventually spilled over in what became a highly-charged atmosphere, with caddie Joe LaCava getting embroiled in a confrontation with Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n
Bradley said: “The PGA of America came to me. They wanted to bring the Ryder Cup into the present day.<\/p>\n
“The charity dollars hadn\u2019t changed since 1999 and they asked me to sort of shepherd their way into making it into 2025.<\/p>\n
“This was what we decided. We felt like this was the best way to do it. We copied a lot of what the Presidents Cup does.<\/p>\n
“We did the best we could. I think the players are going to do a lot of good with this money, and I think it\u2019s great.”<\/p>\n
There have been no calls on the European side for payments to be made.<\/p>\n
Bradley\u2019s opposite number Luke Donald, who oversaw Europe\u2019s victory in Rome, said last year he did not believe players should be paid.<\/p>\n
Team talisman McIlroy went even further, saying he would “pay for the privilege” of being involved.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a press conference at Bethpage, Bradley said: “I\u2019m not concerned about what Europe does or what they think. I\u2019m concerned about what my team is doing.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he regretted how the optics looked, given the finances in the sport, Bradley said: “I don\u2019t really get that. You can say that but I think that the players are really good people and are going to do a lot of good things.”<\/p>\n
For his part, Bradley has revealed he will donate his entire 500,000 allocation to charity but will not put that pressure on others.<\/p>\n
“I think for everyone it\u2019s a personal decision,” he said.<\/p>\n
The 45th Ryder Cup begins on Friday with the US considered favourites to regain the title.<\/p>\n
Bradley came close to qualifying for the team himself but, after finishing 11th in the standings, opted not to select himself as one of his six captain\u2019s picks.<\/p>\n
The 39-year-old said: “I\u2019ve thought about it every second but I\u2019ve also thought about how impossible it would be.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I\u2019ve been called for a bigger cause here but, in the back of my mind, I\u2019m always thinking, ‘I could have been out there\u2019.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States captain Keegan Bradley has defended the decision to pay American players for playing at this week’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-37375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}