There’s a great saying, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” U.S. Ryder Captain Keegan Bradley is righting a wrong by inviting World Golf Hall of Fame member Larry Nelson to serve as an ambassador to the U.S. Ryder Cup team on Sept. 26-28 at Bethpage Black in New York.
Reached by phone Thursday, Nelson said he was participating in a video shoot for the PGA of America in downtown Atlanta during the Tour Championship two weeks ago when Bradley surprised him and asked him to be the team’s guest and hang out with the other past U.S. captains expected to attend.
“It was really special to me,” Nelson told Golfweek. “I haven’t been to the Ryder Cup since 1987, but I’m thrilled to be going this year and it meant a lot to me that Keegan went out of his way to include me.”
What a classy gesture to include Nelson, 77, who played on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams (1981, 1983, 1987) and recorded a career mark of 9-1-3 in the biennial competition. Fellow American great Tom Watson went so far as to say that if he could pick only one golfer to play in a must-win Ryder Cup match, it would be Nelson.
That he was never chosen to lead the American team in the Ryder Cup has been a major oversight. Nelson is a remarkable success story, having fought in Vietnam for nearly 2½ years during his tour of duty in the Army. He didn’t even take up golf until he was 21 years old. That didn’t stop him from winning 10 times on the PGA Tour, including three majors (1981 and ’87 PGA and 1983 U.S. Open).
Nelson was rumored to be in line to captain the American side in 1995, but the PGA went with Lanny Wadkins. Surely he’d get the role in 1997, but the PGA went a different way and selected Tom Kite. And so it went for the better part of the next decade and beyond. Someone else always got the job rather than a true American hero who had served his nation and performed admirably in the trenches as a player in the Ryder Cup. Nelson is too modest and too soft-spoken to complain about being passed over for the Ryder Cup job, but he admitted it is one of his few regrets in the game.
Bradley knows what it feels like to want to play for your country and be left off the team. It happened to him just two years ago when U.S. Captain Zach Johnson made a heartbreaking call to Bradley that was filmed in Netflix’s golf documentary “Full Swing,” for all the world to see.
Nelson downplayed his disappointment, noting he’s got company in being overlooked for the captaincy and it was an honor to be considered. But he said he felt as if he had been welcomed back into the fold and looks forward to returning to the Ryder Cup after all these years.
It won’t make up for not being chosen in this leadership role, but Nelson deserves to sit with the past captains and his presence can only inspire the United States’ 12-man team to believe they can play the type of golf that Nelson was famous for at Ryder Cups.
“I don’t plan on talking to the team, but if called on I will,” he said. “I can’t tell you how touched I am that Keegan took the time to personally invite me in Atlanta.”
It’s been too long – nearly 40 years – since Nelson has attended a Ryder Cup. Kudos to Bradley for having the vision to right a wrong in his own small way.
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