FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Keegan Bradley has caught himself a few times, falling for a trap that comes with the view from the sideline. Seeing one thing, but imagining another.
Bethpage Black, site of this week’s Ryder Cup, was mostly empty Monday, making it easy to let the mind wander. Bradley, the United States team captain and, as the No. 13-ranked player in the world, the de facto omission from the 2025 U.S. team, cruised around the course for an early-week practice round.
The players played.
The captain watched.
Everyone knew this would be the case ever since Bradley used his six captain’s picks to give Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns spots on the U.S. roster. But now the Ryder Cup is here and Bradley is coming face-to-face with the decision.
“I’ve thought about it every second,” Bradley said Monday.
It’s one thing to say all the right things about such a choice, as Bradley did when announcing his picks on Aug. 27. It’s another thing to live with the choice. Turns out, it isn’t easy.
“In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, I could have been out there.”
Of course he has. The 39-year-old nearly outright qualified for this Ryder Cup team. He finished ahead of Young, Cantlay and Burns on the team points list. He won the Travelers Championship in late June. The last two seasons have produced some of the best golf of his 17-year career.
This U.S. team, along with the Europeans, is a collection of Bradley’s peers, not a group of young guys he’s mentoring. This is where it gets tricky.
“I catch myself every now and then looking down the fairway, seeing the guys walk down the fairway and think how badly I’d like to do that,” Bradley said during a joint press conference with European captain Luke Donald, who’s in his second stint leading the Euros, “and how badly I’d want to be in the group with Scottie Scheffler and seeing him play and being his teammate.”
As hard as it is, Bradley keeps reminding himself that he made his decision for a reason. He maintains that it would have been “impossible” to serve as a playing captain, while relinquishing the captainship to play would have betrayed his original commitment to the task.
“I feel like I’ve been called for a bigger cause here, to help our guys get ready to play and play at the highest level,” he said.
Those feelings will be hard to square all week, but Bradley doesn’t have much of a choice. It will be curious to follow how Bradley the player might impact the decisions of Bradley the captain.
The reality is, this is his team. That was the view early Monday morning as Bradley began the journey by gathering everyone together on Bethpage’s first tee. Surrounded by 3,300 empty seats that will shape a raucous stage come Friday, he said what he wanted to say and let everyone take in the moment. The emotion, he later said, was inescapable.
“A lot of people have worked really hard to get to this point in their lives,” Bradley said.
(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)