Ryder Cup: Keegan Bradley envisions playing at Bethpage Black, but stands by decision to only be the U.S. captain

Keegan Bradley very easily could have been out on Monday afternoon, warming up with the guys he’s tasked with leading at Bethpage Black.

While he admitted that it’s in the back of his mind — he said he’s “always thinking, ‘I could have been out there’” — Bradley knows he made the right decision to stick to just one job this week for the Ryder Cup.

“Definitely. I’ve thought about it every second,” the U.S. captain said on Monday when asked about his decision not to play.

“But I’ve also thought about how impossible it would be … I was picked to do this job as captain, and there’s been certain things that I’ve done during the week or lead-up that if I was playing, I don’t think I could have done at the level that I needed to do them at.”

Bradley is coming off one of the best seasons of his career. He won the Travelers Championship in June, marking his eighth win on the PGA Tour, and he had six top 10 finishes while climbing to No. 11 in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings. Had he not been the captain of the team, he very likely would have been picked to join the U.S. team for the third time in his career. He last played in 2014, and he holds a 4-3-0 record as a player.

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The idea that Bradley could be a rare playing captain dominated the sport in the weeks and months leading up to the day that Bradley officially made his captain’s picks. He would have been the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer did so in 1963.

“I catch myself every now and then looking down the fairway, seeing the guys walk down the fairway and think how badly I’d like to do that, and how badly I’d want to be in the group with Scottie Scheffler and seeing him play and being his teammate,” Bradley said. “But I feel like I’ve been called for a bigger cause here, to help our guys get ready to play and play at the highest level.”

That bigger cause is trying to get the U.S. team to a third straight win on home soil in the Ryder Cup amid what’s been a very dominant stretch for the Europeans. Europe has won eight of the last 11 outings in the biennial event, including two years ago in dominant fashion in Rome. They’ve got nearly the exact same team back this time, too.

Bradley’s group, on the other hand, has four rookies in Ben Griffin, Russell Henley, J.J. Spaun and Cameron Young. He brought the entire group out to the first tee on Monday, too, to take in the moment.

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While they have a long way to go to avenge the five-point loss from two years ago, it’s a start. And Bradley’s trying to just appreciate it before things get hectic in a few days.

“Sometimes in your life and in your career, you have to take stock in what’s happening around you,” he said. “I think one of my biggest regrets earlier in my career wasn’t enjoying things more. And for that moment out this morning, guys were really taking that in and enjoying it, and that was a beautiful thing.”