What your Keegan Bradley Ryder Cup opinion says about you

Will he … or won’t he? 

That is the discourse of the week, the summer, maybe even the full 2025 calendar year. Will Keegan Bradley be a playing captain in the Ryder Cup … or simply just a captain? 

As Bradley himself has stated recently — the only place where he can avoid questions about the Ryder Cup is inside the ropes at a Tour event. Which is, coincidentally, what is earning him so many Ryder Cup questions. And like a lot of hypothetical debates in pro golf, we have reached a boiling point months before we’ll actually receive an answer. Bradley doesn’t have to make his captain’s picks until late August. Will he make himself one of those picks? Will he qualify on points? Will he captain 

The answer to your opinion on all those questions actually says a lot about you. We’ve tried to detail a bit of that and the dilemma below. 

If you want Bradley to play … 

… You’re European. Let’s get this out of the way first. When Bradley was announced this time a year ago, the European leadership team rejoiced. They know winning an away Ryder Cup is as difficult a job as there is in golf, so they’ll take any sort of advantage they can get. Having the captain worrying about his play, or having a player worrying about daily team lineups, is exactly the kind of unnecessary chaos Europe would like to see their opponents battle. 

If you want Bradley to JUST captain … 

…You’re an Andrew Novak fan. Or a Cameron Young fan. Or a Denny McCarthy fan. Bradley going from captain to playing-captain simply takes a spot away from a number of fringe players. If you ride hard for Maverick McNealy, you’re secretly cheering for Bradley to struggle the next couple of months. 

If you want Bradley to play … 

… You’re a content creator. Take this article as an example. The do-or-don’t proposition is as tantalizing as a topic can get for a no-money exhibition event. But the fact that everyone cares deeply about this decision is fodder for all types of journalists, broadcasters, content creators, podcasters, etc. It’s free discourse. We love that. 

If you want Bradley to JUST captain … 

… You’re an anxious American. You’ve seen the team at its peak and at its worst. You realize there’s a difference in player demeanor between both sides, and you don’t want any more chaos. You just want to roll out the better team, with the home course advantage and let the New York faithful get under Rasmus Hojgaard’s skin. 

If you want Bradley to play …

… You’re a blindly confident American. And that might just be fine. You might even have Ryder Cup tickets, in which case you’re extremely confident you can scream at Jon Rahm until your eyes bulge on that first tee. There will be plenty about this year’s Cup that favors the Americans, and so some of the confidence is worthy. But some of it is willful ignorance, too. As if a player who is also making captain decisions is a guaranteed smooth ride. 

If you want Bradley to JUST captain …

… You understand the Tour schedule. While we haven’t dabbled in the playing captain debate in a very long time, we have been here before, in June, when one player seems to have everyone’s attention … and then they win the Travelers. Bradley did it himself two years ago! He seemed like a shoo-in at the time. Wrong. It was too early. Bradley missed the cut at the Open Championship that summer and didn’t do anything special in the Playoff events before the captain’s picks were made. He was on the outside looking in, just like someone will be two months from now. 

If you want Bradley to play … 

… You’ve got a DataGolf subscription. Because if so, you realize he’s ranked 9th in the world right now, based on the scores he’s shot in the last couple of years. As in, DataGolf would expect him to perform well in any tournament, worldwide, to a level higher than the average Ryder Cupper. Golf is weird, though. Form changes trajectory. But Bradley is unquestionably one of the best players in the world, especially from tee to green. The stats back it up. 

Lastly, if you want Bradley to JUST captain … 

… You’re an American who doesn’t like him. Simply put, he has the opportunity to do something no one has done in more than 50 years. And it’s entirely plausible no one will have the chance to do it again. Rory McIlroy said he has no interest in pulling double duty. (Perhaps he’ll change his mind when the time comes.) But Bradley’s name is suddenly being used in the same sentences as Arnold Palmer. 

If you’re anti-Bradley, you probably don’t love that he’s standing at the stoop of history, and it’s all up to him. If you’re nervous about his leading a losing battle as a playing-captain, it’s probably some concern about the Americans losing the first home Ryder Cup in more than a decade. If you’re an anti-Bradley European, well, perhaps you’re nervous about what scene he could create as the first man out in the opening session. 

A prediction! He is absolutely going to be a playing captain, and it is absolutely going to be chaotic, and in the end, we’ll all have been better for it. Feel free to share your thoughts with the author at sean.zak@golf.com.