Keegan Bradley makes the right decision only if the Americans win the Ryder Cup

ATLANTA (AP) — There is only one way out of this mess for U.S. captain Keegan Bradley and that’s for the Americans to win the Ryder Cup.

Anything else will result in endless second-guessing of what Bradley calls the biggest decision of his life. That starts Wednesday when he goes to PGA of America headquarters in Frisco, Texas, and reveals whether the captain is one of his six captain’s picks.

Bradley could pick himself and become the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. He already has said he would not hand over the job to one of his assistants.

Losing captains always get blamed, and they know that when they take the job. They didn’t make the right captain’s picks. They had the wrong pairings. One player should have sat out, another should have played more. The rain suits leaked. It could be anything.

But not this year.

If the Americans lose with Bradley as a player, he had too much on his plate between practicing and playing, making pairings and speeches and all the media responsibilities.

Or he could stick to being only the captain. And if the Americans lose, it was because Bradley didn’t allow them to field their strongest team by trading in his clubs for a golf cart and radio.

Bradley can’t win unless the Americans win.

“I’m very well aware of that,” Bradley said Saturday at East Lake after he shot 63, which only strengthened arguments he should be playing. “No matter what decision I made, I’m going to be defined by this decision. If we win, it doesn’t matter what decision I make.”

Rory McIlroy added to the conversation two weeks ago with sound arguments on his belief that the Ryder Cup has become too big for anyone to be a playing captain. There are meetings with assistants and daily media briefings, and there are limitations as a player.

“The captain isn’t going to be on the course all day, so really the captain’s only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday. Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well?” McIlroy said.

But there’s the other side that McIlroy noted two months ago when Bradley came into view as one of the top American players.

“If he doesn’t pick himself,” McIlroy said, “then you could say America aren’t going with their very best.”

What a mess.

Bradley would be a lock for the Ryder Cup any year but this one. He has two PGA Tour victories against strong fields in the last 13 months — only Scottie Scheffler among Americans has won more. He is No. 8 in the world among Americans, Data Golf rates him the 10th-best American and he finished No. 11 in the Ryder Cup standings.

None of this surprised him. Bradley is 39 — the youngest since Palmer was 34 at East Lake in those one-sided 1963 matches — and he was No. 19 in the world the day he was introduced as captain.

“I figured the likelihood of being completely out of the picture was pretty slim,” he said.

Where he painted himself into a corner was declaring when he was accepted the job that he would only play if he qualified for the team.

“I’m not going to pick myself,” he said in July 2024. “The only way that would happen is if the team was insisting on it. But even if they did, I don’t see that happening. I want to make the team on points, otherwise I’m going to be the captain.”

And then he won the Travelers Championship in June.

“This changes the story a little bit,” Bradley said. “This definitely opens the door to play.”

He was one shot out of the lead on the front nine on Sunday at the Tour Championship until he stopped making enough birdies and faded into a tie for seventh, his first top 10 since he won the Travelers.

It was an impressive performance considering he spent the previous Monday at Bethpage Black surprising the paying customers with free tickets. He didn’t arrive at East Lake until Tuesday night to take to dinner the players who qualified for the team. He said he never stopped thinking about pairings or motivational words he wanted to impart, even while warming up on the range at East Lake.

And in the final round, he said he was exhausted. It was a lot. And there is more to come.

Bradley did drop a few hints during the week. He said he had a “pretty good idea” on the picks before the Tour Championship. He pointed out it was a two-year process and one week or one round shouldn’t decide who plays. He also said hearing from players that he should play has been flattering but won’t count toward his decision.

The Ryder Cup has always been more like the Hindsight Cup, especially this year.

“The only thing I care about is on Sunday of the Ryder Cup, that we win the Ryder Cup. Then I’ll know I made the right decision,” Bradley said. “Until then, I won’t know. It’s going to be pretty wild. Whatever decision we make, we’re going to have to live with it.”

There is one upside to all this drama about whether Bradley should play: At least no one is talking about the Americans getting paid.

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On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

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