Keegan Bradley’s hypercharged Travelers win was Ryder Cup prelude

For good or for ill, the 2025 Ryder Cup got more interesting in the dusk light on Sunday, a little after 6 p.m., as Keegan Bradley (excitable New Englander), Tommy Fleetwood (chill old Englander) and Russell (Do the Right Thing) Henley all marched up the final hole of the Travelers Championship, the enduring Hartford stop.

Henley, who called a one-shot penalty on himself on Friday for ball movement only he could see, holed out a 52-foot birdie chip to give himself a chance to win. Fleetwood needed three putts from 50 feet when two would have meant a playoff at worse. Bradley did what major winners know how to do. He seized the night with a bingo-bango-bongo birdie 3 to win by a shot. He stiffed his approach shot and rattled in a 6-footer to win.

The guess here is that all three will be playing on Sept. 19, on the last day of the ’25 Ryder Cup, at Bethpage Black, Bradley in the Sunday singles lineup as a playing captain. You can see him batting second, if you’re looking to really pin things down here. He can finish early and shake, rattle and roll for the rest of the day.

You got this, J.J. — you’re the U.S. Open champion!

Go team.

Arnold Palmer was the last playing captain in a Ryder Cup, in a home game in Atlanta, where Bradley won his PGA Championship. Arnold played and captained in ’63, when the event was a goodwill golfing get-together, closer to sleepy than must-watch TV. Now it is professional golf’s Super Bowl, without the $15 million one-minute ad spots.

The last time out, two years ago in Italy, the Ryder Cup was a boorish spectacle pretty much all the way around as the Europeans won in a rout and various players, caddies and fans made fools of themselves. (Luke Donald, the European captain then and again this year, was a notable exception. Stay classy!) The ’23 show was rowdy, about as dignified as late-’70s roller derby. Don’t blame Bradley. He was not chosen to play on that team, though many thought he had earned the right to be one of captain Zach Johnson’s six picks. 

That horror show was in Rome, cradle of civilization, in a city with a F1 and football (soccer) culture. The ’25 edition Ryder Cup, at Bethpage State Park, birthplace of the American golf-for-everybody movement, will only be rougher. Bradley has jet fuel for blood. You saw it Sunday night at Hartford, holding up his winning putter like it was the Stanley Cup. He’ll be spilling that fuel everywhere, come mid-September.

Bethpage, on Long Island, is 30 pigeon-flying miles from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, great meeting place of capitalistic aggression. (There are first-graders in New York, next-generation floor traders, who pack cans of Red Bull in their Gordon Gekko lunch boxes.) Bradley played college golf for St. John’s University in Queens, home of the Red Storm and 20 pigeon-flying miles from Bethpage Black. (Two major international airports as well.) Do you think the well-served Bethpage fans are going to let Rory McIlroy forget about his “red mist” (an Irishism for sudden, intense anger) directed at California golfer Patrick Cantlay and his caddie, New York Giants fan Joe LaCava, in Rome? They won’t, and it won’t matter to anybody that some ridiculous American behavior — let’s not revisit the whole hat thing again — is what set McIlroy off.

Do you think those same fans are going to let McIlroy forget about some of the surliness he has shown since winning the Masters and completing the career Grand Slam? For instance, his Friday-night exclamation at Oakmont, when he said, “I feel like I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want.” It was unsettling to hear, but he was talking only about showing up at post-round press conferences. In other words, the context was narrow, and it sounded more obnoxious than it was. The Bethpage fans won’t care. They’re going to want a piece of that nice green club coat Augusta National issued McIlroy in April.

Please enjoy this brief sample from Brooklyn’s own Jay-Z, from Empire State of Mind:

For foreigners, it ain’t fair.

When New York comes at you, it’s from every direction. 

There are 12 players on each Ryder Cup team, six make the team on a point system, the rest are picked by a captain. Bradley has said he will consider playing on the U.S. team only if he makes it on points. He is now ninth on the U.S. points list. He needs to play often and well in July and August to make the team. Logic would tell you it’s a longshot. Sunday night in Hartford would tell you otherwise.

Golf does unpredictable well. Russell Henley’s chip-in on the last. Tommy Fleetwood’s three-putt on the same hole. Keegan Bradley’s close-out birdie. Summer Two-Oh-Two-Five is here. You’ll be seeing a lot of KB and the Sunshine Band this summer. If you see him, please don’t offer him a Red Bull. The guy is already all amped.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com