It’s a journey that started more than two years ago, when Keegan Bradley got that heartbreaking phone call to say that he wouldn’t be on the 2023 Ryder Cup team
He wouldn’t be on the team despite being one of the team’s 12 best players, because ultimately his face didn’t fit.
Then-captain Zach Johnson picked his mates, regardless of how they were actually playing, a decision that backfired spectacularly and predictably.
From there, seemingly to make amends, Bradley was offered the captaincy for 2025. Naturally, he jumped at the chance. Few would have expected Bradley would have been one of the 12 best players when the Ryder Cup actually came around, but he was, and was faced with the impossible decision of picking himself, or not picking his 12 best players. He went for the latter.
Unfortunately for Bradley, his captaincy threatens to end in disaster. While it’s easy to say that a captain does no more than pick the players, the modern Ryder Cup requires detailed analysis of who should play with who, and Bradley has consistently been found wanting.
We look at five of the biggest decisions Bradley has got wrong this week.
Leading with Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas
The USA got off to the worst possible start and it was a problem entirely of their own making.
There was at least logic to sending out their two biggest cheerleaders first. It makes the first tee a cauldron with an electric atmosphere and that could permeate through to the rest of the team. But that only happens for as long as DeChambeau and Thomas won holes. They won the first and leaked oil from there. Bethpage Black was silent throughout Friday morning and none of the remaining teams had anything to feed off.
Thomas’s game makes him a formidable four-balls player, but he’s not suitable for foursomes. Bradley was relying on Thomas and DeChambeau beating the proven duo of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.
But when you hear his European counterpart Luke Donald talk about which balls each player uses, all the data, all the analytics, and Bradley responds with “vibes”, it suggests the United States still haven’t learned their lesson.
Letting Russell Henley tee off first with Scottie Scheffler
Everyone thought Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley would go out together to play foursomes, and there was nothing wrong with this partnership on paper. They’d played and won at the Presidents Cup, they’re both supreme iron players, and Henley’s a laser-straight hitter off the tee.
But everyone also expected Scheffler to tee off on the odd holes and Henley on the evens. It gave Scheffler, the longer hitter, more of the longer drives and the tougher iron shots early in the match.
The importance of the captaincy can be, and often is, overstated; at the end of the day, the players have to hit the shots and hole the putts, but you have to at least platform your players properly to give them the chance to play to their abilities.
There’s then the question of why they switched on day two. Did Bradley throw data to the wind on day one, when the analytics must have surely told him Scheffler should have gone out first? Or did he do it on day two?
Playing Harris English and Collin Morikawa – twice
It’s easy to look at the outcome of these picks and deem them to have been poor decisions after the fact. But leading golf data website Data Golf had Harris English and Collin Morikawa as the rock-bottom pairing for foursomes. 132nd out of 132. You could have picked out literally any two names from a hat and they’d have been better suited. It’s actually hard to get a pairing so wrong.
There’s an argument that in playing two of his weaker players early, their dismal play on Friday would have given him a legitimate excuse to tell Morikawa not to return to Bethpage until Saturday afternoon. But to repeat the mistake on Saturday morning was mind-boggling. The reasoning even more so.
“They were really bummed out that they lost their match today. They were eager to get back out on the course, and that's why we did that,” said Bradley when asked why he sent his worst pairing back out. It’s a Ryder Cup; of course they’re eager to get back out there, but it’s your job as captain to do what’s best for the team. Contrast that with Donald, who sat Rasmus Hojgaard all Saturday after his struggles on Friday.
Were Bradley not a current PGA Tour player, spending his weeks with these players, would he have made that same call?
Sitting Cameron Young in the Friday foursomes
It’s easy to look at how Cameron Young played in his first two sessions and wonder why he didn’t play Friday foursomes, but many called for his inclusion ahead of time. Scheffler/Henley and Schauffele/Cantlay were pencilled in, with DeChambeau also in line to play all five sessions.
Young had spent the week practising with Bryson DeChambeau, and they both play the same ball and have similar games.
The ultimate energy player paired with the local favourite made far more sense than pairing DeChambeau with an out-of-form Thomas. Bradley rectified his mistake for day two, but the early damage had already been done.
Sitting JJ Spaun in the Saturday foursomes
Nobody would begrudge Bradley sticking with his initial plan going into Friday’s four-balls. Dramatic changes risk unsettling your players who’ve prepared for certain scenarios, but you must then adapt for Saturday, and that would have included playing JJ Spaun.
There weren’t many calls for Spaun to play on Friday morning, but he’s a solid tee to green player who looked more suited to foursomes than four-balls. He’s neither short nor inaccurate off the tee, he’s a strong iron player and can putt.
One can only wonder what he was thinking as he watched Morikawa and English lose 3&2 on Saturday…
