Keegan Bradley wanted to play for Team USA in the Ryder Cup. So when he got the call from the PGA of America and was offered captaincy last summer, after Tiger Woods turned it down, he was caught off guard.
The U.S. hasn’t had a playing captain at the Ryder Cup in more than 60 years.
“When I get the call I’m thinking, I really want to be on the team,” Bradley said Sunday. “The first thing they said was, ‘We want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1962.’ And, I mean, my head was spinning.”
Bradley had insisted that the only way he would play in the Ryder Cup – which will take place at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y. in late September – was if he were among the top six automatic qualifiers. But, after he won the Travelers Championship in Cromwell this week, his decision became more complicated. He moved up from No. 17 to No. 9 in the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings, clearly among the 12 best American players, and could choose to put himself on the team with one of his six captain’s picks.
“Listen, this changes the story a little bit,” Bradley said Sunday, minutes after sinking a clutch birdie putt at the center of a packed amphitheater surrounding No. 18, an atmosphere he could compare to his previous Ryder Cup experiences as a player in 2012 and ’14.
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“I never would have thought about playing if I hadn’t won,” he said. “This definitely opens the door to play. I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not, but I certainly have to take a pretty hard look at what’s best for the team and we’ll see. We still got – it’s still June, so we still got a long ways to go. This definitely changes things a little bit, and we’ll all get together and figure out the best way to do this.”
There haven’t been many golfers who’ve been able to experience what Bradley did at TPC River Highlands around 6 p.m. on Sunday.
Bradley, a Vermont native and a humble representative of New England golf on the PGA Tour, always has a good crowd behind him at The Travelers, the only PGA Tour event in the region. But this week, with the “U-S-A” chants heating up as the captain hung around the top of the leaderboard and ultimately took his first lead on the final hole, was a bit different.
“I’ve always gotten really great support here, but I don’t know, today was insane. It’s something that I didn’t expect when I got this job. It just never crossed my mind. I get it when I’m playing good golf, I get it when I’m pumping gas, I get it in restaurants, people are saying it, but I never expected this sort of support for the Ryder Cup captain,” Bradley said.
“I had this epiphany at the PGA Championship when I was getting these loud USA cheers that I don’t think any player in the history of the game has experienced what I’m experiencing in that I’m a Ryder Cup captain, in my eyes still one of the best players in the world trying to win majors and tournaments. And not a lot of people have experienced coming down the stretch of a tournament as the Ryder Cup captain, of big tournaments, and I’ve tried to embrace that and tried to feed off the energy, but they were really loud this week.”
A year ago, when he got the call to be captain, Bradley would’ve never thought he’d be ranked No. 7 in the world golf rankings, which he accomplished with Sunday’s championship.
His thoughts after accepting the job were solely on the job. He said on Wednesday, before The Travelers began, that he’s enjoying the work that comes with the captaincy – thinking about pairings, watching other Americans play and talking with scouts, scheduling and discussing strategy with his four vice captains: Jim Furyk, Kevin Kisner, Webb Simpson and Brandt Snedeker.
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“To be honest with you, I never really planned on playing,” he said Sunday. “I really wanted to just be the captain. I really felt strongly about that. I want to serve the guys. They asked me to do a job. I want to do it to the best of my abilities. Now, with the amazing vice captains that I have, and I have a better perspective of playing in the Presidents Cup and being around a lot of the guys, I feel a lot more comfortable if I went that route.”
At age 39, in a season where he’s now won once and had five top-10 finishes in 15 starts, Bradley’s position is certainly unique. Being asked to be the first to do something since Arnold Palmer is “a heavy burden.”
“But, you know, I’m also fortunate,” Bradley said. “If Tiger or Phil (Mickelson) or these guys got a captaincy at my age, they would have done it the same way. I’ve just been lucky enough to be asked to do this at a younger age.”
Travelers Championship generates more than $4 million for charity
Soon after Bradley lifted his second trophy in three years in Cromwell, Travelers announced that the 2025 event generated more than $4 million for over 215 nonprofit organizations, both record highs.
The Travelers Championship donates 100% of its net proceeds to nonprofits. This year’s primary beneficiary was The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which is based in Ashford and provides a traditional summer camp experience for children with serious illnesses. Other charities benefited with focuses spanning from arts and culture, education, health care, housing, human services, mental health, food insecurity, science and technology and youth development.
“This week truly captured what makes the Travelers Championship so special – world-class golf played before an enthusiastic crowd, all united by a shared purpose,” Chairman and CEO of Travelers, Alan Schnitzer, said in a release. “It is a formula that led to a great week of golf and more money raised for charity than ever before.
“For 19 years, we have been honored to bring the PGA Tour to Connecticut, and every year I am inspired by the passion of the players, the dedication of our fans and the incredible support from volunteers and partners who rally around our mission to give back. In addition to supporting vital charitable causes, we are proud that the tournament also generates significant economic activity for the state of Connecticut. Congratulations to our 2025 champion, Keegan Bradley, for rising to the top of one of the strongest fields in the game. We are already looking forward to making next year’s tournament even more memorable.”
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