Thursday Themes - Pick Six Edition

So, your humble blogger finally got one right....

Here's Geoff on the non-pick:

Turns out, Keegan Bradley never planned to pick Keegan Bradley.

The 2025 Ryder Cup captain said the “decision was made a while ago that I wouldn’t be playing” this year’s matches at Bethpage. Now he tells us!

Bradley did admit to pondering a change of heart—probably back when it was looking like the USA team was around five deep—before reverting to his plan of only leading the squad. Bradley finished 11th in the points race.

“I would say there was a point this year where I was playing, a while ago,” Bradley said. “All these guys stepped up in a major way and played their way onto this team. That's something that I'm really proud of and something that I really wanted.”

That Bradley kept a poker face throughout the last few months and kept the Cupnescenti speculating bodes well. The Captaincy comes down to some combination of organization, motivational speaking, communication, narcissism management, and making three tough calls: on pick day and again before the Friday and Saturday weekday sessions.

“I was confident that if I did need to play, I had incredible vice captains that I could lean on, an incredible team I could lean on,” he said. “But I've said through this process over and over and over, I was going to do what I thought was best for the team, and this was the decision that I thought was best.”

To me, the only outstanding question is how long Keegs has been reading along with us here, because he channeled my thoughts perfectly.  What's not said explicitly but I believe is inferred is that Keegan would have needed to separate himself from the other players, an automatic qualification being the most obvious manner of doin so.  But given that the last grouping of players from whence the final pick or two would come, Bradley, Burns, Young and McNeally, were bunched, it made little sense to risk the vagaries of a dual role.

More from Geoff:

Bradley said he advised rookies like Maverick McNealy to make the team on points since Captain’s picks were unlikely to go to first-timers. McNealy finished 10th in points, one spot

behind Ben Griffin and four clear of Cameron Young, who each will make their Ryder Cup debuts. Griffin was rewarded for his consistency and Young for a late burst of play that included his first PGA Tour win. He also has the best history with Bethpage Black of anyone in the matches.

By Wednesday’s gathering at PGA of America headquarters in Frisco, Collin Morikawa was rumored to be the odd-man out after deep data crunching. Bradley put that idea to rest by making him the second name announced.

“Collin is one of the most genuine, thoughtful people that I've ever met,” Bradley said. “He's an incredible teammate, incredible ball striker. His golf resume speaks for itself. But more importantly, he'll do whatever it takes to help our team win, and he brings so much to our team. Really proud to have him.”

Sure, or at least Collin is a perfect teammate for that Cantlay guy, as collectively the two of them owe nobody anything....

Sean Zak has quite the curious take:

Ryder Cup fans just lost something special. Now, we may never get it

 The build-up, though, seems a little forced:

Was it ever really on the table?

Was it even feasible?

How close was it?

The questions Keegan Bradley faced immediately after not choosing himself as a Ryder Cup

captain’s pick were, well, the exact same questions we were all asking at home, or in group chats or in DMs in our work Slack channels. When it comes to the Ryder Cup, more than any other event in golf, the journalists in the room can be a lot like those watching on the couch — we all love a good story. And this one, as the kids like to say, would have done numbies.

Ratings would have been higher. The secondary market for tickets — already massively inflated — would have found new heights. There would be more Ryder Cup on your Instagram feed and in your email inbox and around the water cooler.

And now? It will still be a fantastic, epic, rollicking time. But it won’t quite be what many of use were dreaming about. Golf fans lost something in those captain’s picks Wednesday morning, and we’ll probably never know exactly what it was.

I think Sean should give his italics key the rest of the day off....

Ratings apparently are going to tank because Keegs didn't call his own number, and who would tune in for Scottie v. Rory?

“We weren’t scrambling at all,” he added.

Well, pal, the rest of us were! And for good reason. Because for as chaotically extra as the Ryder Cup is on its own, and as gloriously capitalistic as it has become for the PGA of America, the one thing that draws eyeballs to the event is golf in its rawest form. Nerves you cannot replicate, even in the final group of a major. Angst that simply doesn’t exist in stroke play. Strains of disdain, if only temporary, that don’t arise in this game of gentlemen.

More human nature oozes out of the trappings of a Ryder Cup than anywhere else in the game. That’s why I believed for months that it was a lock — Bradley would call his own number. Because the nature of an elite professional golfer is to believe in your ability to hit the shot, regardless of the lie. It’s an obligation of mindset atop the game — you can do anything with a club in your hands. It contradicts Bradley’s DNA, during the best golfing year of his life, to hand the baton to someone else, but here we are. The world of optimized lineups, defensive shifts and, in this sport, setting up golf courses to play to fractions of an advantage, took over years ago. In the process we sacrificed an element of freewheeling in pursuit of overthinking.

One thing you wouldn’t have to think long about: Would Seve Ballesteros have selected himself?

Undoubtedly. Phil Mickelson would have, too. They would have drooled at the prospect of being a true puppet-master.

So, Keegs should have chosen himself because Phil would have done it?  Sean, have you been in a cone of silence the last few years?  Because Phil has an odor to him in recent times....

But see if this bit holds up to reality any better than the above:

Tiger Woods grabbed the opportunity at the 2019 Presidents Cup, and then he went down to Australia and handed out daily lessons to golfers half his age — as well as those of us watching back home past midnight. What Woods did that week remains one of the most underappreciated aspects of his legend, mostly because it took place in the wee hours in the United States. Were it to have unfolded on Long Island in the setting September sun, it would have been so iconic that Bradley would have wanted a chance to replicate it.

You mean that Prez Cup they almost lost?  The one where Tiger picked himself and then couldn't get out of bed on Saturday?  I'd say it was lucky for all involved that it took place at Zero Dark Thirty.

Keegan as a playing captain would be a story, and writers (not to mention bloggers) will have have a bias towards easy content, but there seems precious little understanding of his obligations in accepting the captaincy.

Bradly had the support of this outspoken critic:

Brandel Chamblee said five of the captain’s picks weren’t surprising to him, and it essentially came down to if Bradley would pick himself, which would likely leave off Maverick McNealy or Sam Burns. But when Bradley was rattling off his picks on live TV Wednesday and skipped over himself in the standings to get to the next player, it was a clear hint he wasn’t calling his own number.

“I think he may well have won the Ryder Cup in making that decision,” Chamblee said on Golf Channel after the picks were made. “When you start to look at a captaincy or at a team, it’s never any one thing that makes a great player or a great captain, but it’s an assembly of a lot of little things like a mosaic.

fair enough, but then Brandel has to remind us how clever he is and adds this absurd detail:

“And in the same way you got the sense when Luke Donald, in opening ceremonies in 2023 got up and spoke Italian for two or three minutes, you thought, this Ryder Cup is over,” he continued. “Because if he spent and thought about it in that kind of detail how to open the ceremony, what was the rest of the week going to be like and how thorough had he thought about things? So Keegan Bradley just thinking about the decision to pick himself, that’s what a leader does, make a personal sacrifice for the collective good of a team. It’s the kind of thing a leader would do that would get his team to sort of run through a wall for him. Imagine the rest of that week; he’s going to look at them and be like, I stepped aside to focus on every little detail to help you guys, and how empowering that must be for his team.”

Seer how much I can learn from Brandel.  because I did watch that opening ceremony and I remember Luke going native, though my reaction focused more on his horrible accent than the finality Brandel allegedly saw.  I might be curious as to whether he shared that finality with his Golf Channel viewers, but it's Brandel.

This is a largely sensible take:

Keegan Bradley got robbed of his Ryder Cup dream. He’s built a new one

First, not too shabby a substitute dream, but I'd also not be so quick to rule him out in 2027 and beyond.

Shane Ryan, though, is a bit more introspective:

Voices: Keegan Bradley's sacrifice was noble. It resulted from a year of bad decisions

I had to ask Keegan Bradley the question at his Ryder Cup press conference on Wednesday, because it's been on my mind for about a month: "Do you agree with the statement that if the

Ryder Cup captain were anyone other than Keegan Bradley, Keegan Bradley would be playing on the team?"

He did the right thing by giving a non-answer to the hypothetical—"how could we ever know that?"—but after his snub in 2023, and the ensuing sympathetic depiction on Netflix’s “Full Swing” that got public sentiment so much on his side that the powers-that-be made the shocking decision to name him captain, it seems inconceivable that any other captain would have repeated the snub. We'll never know, but it sets up a somewhat agonizing thought: The only way to keep him off the team in 2025 was to name him captain. Looked at a certain way, it's like an ironic curse from the golf gods.

Let it be said that Bradley did something very noble by leaving himself off the team, and it speaks well for how he'll function as a leader at Bethpage Black next month. He claimed the decision had been made for some time, with other reports from the past two days indicating it was a bit more uncertain. And while we may never know the specifics of how close he came to picking himself, we can safely say it's the decision that keeps the narrative from spinning out of control, puts any distraction to the side and lets him lead as captain with crystal-clear focus.

So, he acted like an adult.  Easy to see why that surprised everyone after watching the behavior of our elite players the last few years.

This is a point worth making as well:

He could have been a great player for the team, but there are other great players to choose from, and the captaincy job is so comprehensive and time-consuming that dividing your energies is a huge risk in a few different ways. Just ask Europe—they've been eager for a year for Bradley to take on both duties, and reports indicate that Luke Donald agreeing to the addendum allowing a vice captain to take over while Bradley played was based in part in Europe's eagerness for that exact scenario to play out.

Yes, though amusingly that Rory guy couldn't stay on script, and just had to tell Keegan he would be crazy to do both.

But Shane is about the only guy that seems to remember how we got here:

But there's another element that has to be recognized here, and it's not so uplifting. The truth is, none of this had to happen. Bradley only found himself in this position as a result of a series of baffling and bad decisions that began a year ago, in July 2024, with naming him the captain in the first place.

As I wrote at the time, it was impossible to call Bradley's appointment a good choice or a bad choice, because it truly came from out of left field (and was apparently floated and approved over a short phone call). He had no experience even as a vice-captain, wasn't so beloved of his peers that he stood out as a natural leader and seemed to be based entirely on the fact that Tiger Woods said no and that they felt bad for Bradley for being left out of the squad in Rome. Which, it has to be said, is a strange reason to make that choice. The biggest problem with it, though, is exactly what came to pass—he might play! As I wrote then, "What if, like last time, he has a solid argument for making the team as a captain's pick, and finds himself having to make a tough call … on himself?"

And that's not to pat myself on the back—it was entirely foreseeable by everybody except, apparently, those making the decision. True, the otherwise successful task force had failed to prepare a younger generation of captains beyond Zach Johnson, and true, they got unlucky with Tiger and Phil Mickelson leaving the scene. But it wouldn't have been hard to name an experienced guy like Stewart Cink, or to pick Jim Furyk again with the vow that he'd take on a fleet of younger vice-captains like Webb Simpson and Brandt Snedeker and Kevin Kisner who would be ready to take over in 2027. Instead, they took the radical path, and the radical path has almost always backfired when it comes to choosing a Ryder Cup captain (see: the legacy of Ted Bishop).

Let's go even further back and remember that this logically would have been Phil's turn. How'd that work out?

Then Tiger turned it down because.... Well, because those negotiations with the Saudis were so time-consuming.... Are you done laughing yet?  Of course, that may not be why Tiger really turned it down, because his buddy McManus has the next Ryder Cup at his Adare Manor, and is anyone but your humble blogger wondering whether shekels will change hands under the table?

But here I'll part ways with Shane:

Just after the Travelers, though, Bradley had what I thought was a golden opportunity to have the best of both worlds. By resigning the captaincy then and putting his fate in the hands of whoever took over next, he would have almost surely cemented his place on the team—again, who's going to say no at that point?—and simultaneously assured that he'd be a shoo-in for a future captaincy. Instead, they pushed ahead with the idea of a playing captain, which hasn't been tried in the Ryder Cup in the modern era, and ended up as a near disaster when Woods, as a playing captain, and his American Presidents Cup team nearly blew it against an inferior international squad in Melbourne 2019. (Again, we note Europe's eagerness to manifest that reality.)

Two months later, this is the fruit of that decision—a player who frankly deserves to be on the team, and would be under any other captain's tenure, but can't because he was set up by U.S. leadership (and himself) to be stuck in the "damned if you do, gutted if you don't" situation we saw this week.

Shane, are you really suggesting that, having accepted the captaincy, that he should unceremoniously dump it when it suited his purposes?  And that that would be serving U.S. interests?

As Shane points out, the choice of Bradley was highly flawed, both in terms of the substance and the process.  I've never been a Keegan Bradley fan, not the least bit surprising in view of his Red Sox loyalty, but also his itchy-scratchy nature (probably too close there to my own).  But, while he may have muddied the waters with some of his statements, I think at the end of the day he did the adult thing, and I respect him for that.

But those saying that the U.S. is fielding a weaker team as a result of this series of decision have a point.  Folks have mostly focused on Keegan's 11th place status in the Ryder Cup points list but, far more impressively, Keegan is No. eleven in the OWGR.  The whole purpose of the Task Force was to stop shooting ourselves in the foot, yet we find gun powder residue on everyone involved.

But, if you're frustrated with Keegan not being on the roster, please direct your cards and letters to Eldrick.

I'm eyeing the exit and planning to use Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column for a quickie update on the Euros, but first this was his spot-on assessment before Keegan made his picks known:

As for the U.S. side? They had a funny week. It felt like there were seven or so guys vying for the final four spots and most of ’em played well and finished within a few shots of each other; Patrick Cantlay (15 under, T2) led the charge followed by Cam Young (14 under, T4), Sam Burns and Keegan Bradley (13 under, T7) and Ben Griffin and Chris Gotterup (12 under, T10). I think Cantlay, Young and Griffin are in — which leaves Burns vs. Bradley for the final spot. For the second Ryder Cup in a row.

And it's Burns for the second time in a row.....

And now that Eurotrash update:

If you read last week’s Monday Finish you were well-prepared for this weekend’s intriguing Team Europe drama: Rasmus Hojgaard missed the FedEx Cup playoffs which may have actually helped his chances at making the Ryder Cup team. He returned to Europe, where there were points still available; he then nearly won his home Danish Championship. That set up this week: If Rasmus finished top 30 he’d be in automatically. If he finished outside the top 30? He may not have shown the recent form to make the team. In that situation he might even be replaced by his twin brother Nicolai. How insane is that?

Rasmus finished T13, earning his spot. Nicolai finished second — but probably won’t make this team. They shared a brief, meaningful embrace. I’m guessing Team Europe is all but set now: they’ve traded one twin for another and kept the other 11 players (plus the captain) in place. But is it possible they’d go off-script, swapping out Sepp Straka for Nicolai?!

Straka is in eighth place, so are we that sure about Fitzy and Viktor (who are lower)?  I think Luke will stick with chalk when he makes his picks on Monday.

Have a great holiday weekend and we'll catch up next week.