FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — So who’s going to be your U.S. captain in 2027, when the Ryder Cup is played in Ireland and the team is anchored by Scottie Scheffler?
Scheffler offered the answer Sunday night, just minutes after the two-point, wildly close U.S. defeat, was signed and sealed. He was being interviewed by Damon Hack of NBC Sports. Hack asked Scheffler about the American captain, Keegan Bradley. And then Scheffler, who was on four losing teams Friday morning and afternoon and Saturday morning and afternoon, got emotional. His voice cracked. For a second or two, he got stuck on his words.
And that’s when you knew. Keegan Bradley will be offered the job again by the PGA of America, and he will absolutely take it.
How can you be so sure? Because Scheffler and all the other 11 players were floored by the job that Bradley did, and because Ryder Cup captains are selected by a committee comprised of three players and three PGA of America officials. Bradley was chosen by a committee that included Zach Johnson, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. It’s likely that Scheffler will be on the committee to elect a captain for the next outing. Either way, he’ll have a loud and influential voice. Scheffler, a man who says exactly what he means, said this to Hack about his captain: “Keegan has been amazing.”
Bradley brought in the comedian Nate Bargatze to a pre-Cup, players-and-wives and extended team private performance. And Bargatze killed! The team loved it. Bradley had them loose. The Americans went 1-3 in alternate shot on Friday and again on Saturday. Bradley was too loyal to what players want: no surprises. He didn’t make some lineup changes that in retrospect might have made the difference. Those two sessions cost the Americans the Ryder Cup. But Bradley surely learned from those sessions, as defeat is life’s great teacher.
The Europeans, in Luke Donald, had the consummate professional as their captain, just as they did in Italy two years ago when they won. Donald is smooth and composed and very, very British. Bradley is the opposite in every way, and that makes him very, very American. He’s much more like the late Lou Carnesecca, the legendary and fiery basketball coach at St. John’s, where Bradley attended school. American athletes, golfers among them, like fiery. On a Ryder Cup team, the players have to like their captain. It’s a necessary starting point.
And then there was his remarkably candid remarks at a press conference Sunday night, a half-hour after the final putt of a 15-13 loss that was, for about a two-hour stretch, looking like it could be one of the most remarkable Sunday stories in golf’s long history of Sunday stories. Bradley, speaking in his let-it-all-out way, took complete and total responsibility for the American defeat, and (as you would expect) not one bit of credit for the Americans’ stunning success on Sunday.
“I definitely made a mistake on the course setup,” Bradley said. The fairways were wide, the rough was down. “I should have listened a little bit more to my intuition. For whatever reason, that wasn’t the right way to set the course up.”
The Europeans only won one of the 11 matches played on Sunday. One! That means, of course, that the Americans played well, but that also Bradley made some good, educated guesses about what the matchups might be.
“I had to learn a lot on the fly,” Bradley said Sunday night, asked what he would tell the next captain. “I had to rely on a lot of people. I was going up against an incredible team, and you know, in my eyes, I think Luke Donald is the best European Ryder Cup captain of all time. I did the best that I could, tried to balance playing, but this is the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life. I wouldn’t trade any of this for a second. I woke up every day excited to do this. It turned me into a different person that I am today that I am very thankful for these guys.”
The 12 players on the losing team clapped for their captain. This wasn’t stagecraft or a PR exercise. This was an endorsement.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
