{"id":20042,"date":"2025-07-18T22:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T22:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20042\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T22:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T22:39:09","slug":"the-open-2025-keegan-bradley-underlines-ryder-cup-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20042\/","title":{"rendered":"The Open 2025: Keegan Bradley underlines Ryder Cup dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are scant scenarios where debate would swirl about a Ryder Cup captain picking one of the world’s most in-form players as a wildcard.<\/p>\n

Usually it is a no-brainer. But Keegan Bradley finds himself right in the middle of a rare conundrum with the biennial contest between the United States and Europe looming.<\/p>\n

Following an outstanding run of form, the US captain has played himself into contention for the 12-strong team to compete at Bethpage Black in late September.<\/p>\n

There has not been a playing captain at the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer led the US team in 1963, at a time when the event was not the global behemoth it has become.<\/p>\n

But a strong start at this week’s Open Championship has further underlined 39-year-old Bradley’s credentials.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been playing some pretty good golf – but so have a lot of other Americans,” Bradley said in an interview, external<\/a> published on the Ryder Cup website this week.<\/p>\n

“If I was sitting here without being captain then making this team would be my number one goal – that doesn’t change with me being captain.<\/p>\n

“I would be sitting here thinking ‘I’m right there and have a great chance of making the team’.”<\/p>\n

The world number seven is clearly feeling uneasy about the situation and has been eager to avoid discussing the hypothetical at Royal Portrush. <\/p>\n

The awkwardness of picking himself as a wildcard in New York might end up being redundant. <\/p>\n

Bradley still could qualify automatically as one of the six leading Americans – especially if he earns a high finish in the final major of the year that is weighted to carry more ranking points.<\/p>\n

After winning the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour last month, Bradley moved up to ninth in the US Ryder Cup qualification standings. <\/p>\n

The top six will automatically go into the team, with another half dozen picked by the captain.<\/p>\n

“Nothing about picking whoever it is is going to be easy,” said Bradley, whose sole major victory came when he won the 2011 US PGA Championship.<\/p>\n

“If I get to that position [of finishing outside the top six] and I feel like I’m going to help the team, then I’ll consider playing. <\/p>\n

“But I get asked that question 10 times a day and I don’t really have an answer.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are scant scenarios where debate would swirl about a Ryder Cup captain picking one of the world’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-20042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}