‘I felt like having friends was going to hurt me’: Keegan Bradley on his breathless turn from outsider to Ryder Cup captain

Major champion, seven-time PGA Tour winner, Ryder Cup captain – Keegan Bradley’s career CV is already the kind most golfers would take in a heartbeat, but that hasn’t stopped the American from harboring regrets.

Among the biggest of them all? Not making friends.

“I just came to the course every day and did my job. I felt like having friends was going to hurt me somehow,” Bradley told CNN Sport’s Don Riddell ahead of the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta this week.

“That’s something this generation of players don’t do – they’re all friends and it makes life more fun out here … Something I’ve tried to do a lot more of over the last handful of years is to get to know these guys and hang out with them because they’re such great guys.”

What brought on such introspection? In truth, there have been scant opportunities for self-reflection in a truly breathless 12 months for the 38-year-old.

Just under than a year ago, Bradley was licking painful wounds following his surprise omission from Zach Johnson’s Ryder Cup-losing team. On Sunday, he was toasting victory at the BMW Championship – a tournament he had qualified for in the last spot on the field – six weeks on from being unveiled as a similarly shocking selection for captain at next year’s biennial competition in New York.

Many had expected Tiger Woods to replace Johnson, heavily scrutinized after a bruising 11.5 – 16.5 defeat in Rome. When Bradley was ushered in as the leading man for Bethpage Black in September next year, nobody was more shocked than the man himself.

“I have no idea how it happened,” Bradley recalled to CNN. “I wasn’t involved in any of the conversations.”

“When I felt the extreme support from the players of me being the captain, it was one of the proudest moments of my life.”

Bradley’s pride served as a stark contrast to the intense hurt felt at missing out on last year’s team.

The 2011 PGA Championship winner was one of several players to miss out on a call-up as a captain’s pick despite accumulating more qualification points than Justin Thomas, whose struggles for form saw him ranked 15th in points at the time of selection.

Dubbed the team’s “emotional leader” by Johnson, Thomas was well-known to be close with Jordan Spieth and other members of the US roster. It left Bradley to reflect on his own reluctance to make friendships earlier in his career, as well as the emotional toll that his “obsession” to make the team had taken.

“I vowed to myself never to be that stressed out about making another team,” Bradley said.

“When you don’t make the team on points, you can’t expect to be picked, so I had no hard feelings. I was bummed out, certainly, but you’ve got to make that team in the top six to not be worried about making it.”

Dilemma

Having vowed to use that pain as motivation, Bradley has played some of the best golf of his career in 2024.

After two runner-up finishes, a one-shot victory over compatriot Sam Burns at the BMW Championship lifted him to world No. 11 – one shy of his career-best ranking achieved in 2013.

It emboldens his chances of making Jim Furyk’s team for the Presidents Cup in Montreal, Canada, next month, while also increasing the possibility of a potentially torturous dilemma: could Bradley be put in a position where he is picking himself for his own Ryder Cup team?

Not since Arnold Palmer powered the US to a resounding 23-9 victory in Atlanta in 1963 has there been a playing captain at the tournament. If Bradley, currently ranked 26th in qualification points, was to finish inside the automatic top six spots, he believes he would “certainly have to play.”

Anything less and it would have to be an “overwhelming consensus” among team and captains for Bradley to both play and captain. To do so would be a “dream situation” for the Vermont-born golfer, searching for his first taste of Ryder Cup triumph after defeat in 2012 and 2014.

“I want the best for the team no matter what that is,” he said.

“If me playing hurts the team then that’s not something I want to do. If me just being the captain makes this team better or helps the team, that’s what I want to do.

“It could be I’m nowhere near making the team and this conversation means nothing, but certainly I hope I’ve put myself in that position to be on the team.”

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