Ryder Cup: Captain Keegan Bradley shoulders blame for U.S. defeat

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — If the overriding thought for the U.S. after the opening two days of the Ryder Cup was “we’ve got problems,” as summed up by superfan Michael Jordan, their performance in Sunday singles instilled a message of “we’ve got hope.”

Down 12-5 before Justin Rose took the opening tee shot on the first hole, there was little thought that the U.S. would make it a competitive Sunday. When Cameron Young won the first hole in his match against Rose, a boost was sent across the property as the players and fans crossed Round Swamp Round to the second hole.

It would take some time as Europe hung strong, but over the following few hours, the blue on the scoreboard was turning to red.

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Young went three holes up by the 12th on Rose, and Justin Thomas, who was playing undefeated Tommy Fleetwood, went from down two holes to up one by No. 12. Scoreboards set up around the course allowed fans and players to know where things stood, and when the roars erupted a few holes away, the American faithful knew something positive had happen and began to believe an opportunity was there for a monumental comeback.

While Saturday’s crowd was antagonistic towards the Europeans, Sunday’s crowd was more interested in using their energy to inspire the U.S. team.

As hope remained in the air as the afternoon went on, the Europeans weren’t ready to roll over, especially knowing they only needed two points out of the 11 singles matches to retain the Ryder Cup.

Scoreboard watching wasn’t only being done by the U.S. It got to point where Europe captain Luke Donald was regularly turning around on the 18th green to see how his team was faring, hoping to fend off an American comeback.

Donald knew Sunday could play out like it did. He told his team to not get complacent with such a big lead heading into singles, despite the general feeling of this Ryder Cup being over before a ball was hit on the final day. He looked on behind sunglasses as Russell Henley left a potential hole-winning putt short on 18, setting the stage for Shane Lowry to secure the much-needed half point to retain the trophy.

The American fight was over and the Europeans celebrated on 18 as U.S. captain Keegan Bradley looked on. The Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black wasn’t supposed to end this way for the U.S. squad, but their captain was proud of their effort.

“The Europeans won one match today,” Bradley said afterwards of the 6-1-5 singles record for the U.S. on Sunday. “You think about the odds of something like that happening, just on a coin flip would be incredible. But when you go out in sports and you’re battling your butt off to win, it just shows you just how proud these guys are and how much they want this and how much this means to them, and to watch them go out all week and hold their heads high and then go out there today and do what they did is close to a miracle.

“We were this close to doing this, and it was just so fun for me to sit back and watch and say on the radio, ‘We’ve got to have this putt,’ and it went in and now we need J.T. to make it and he makes it.

“To be able to do stuff like that under pressure is remarkable, and to watch it up close was special.”

Bradley will now face a lot of criticism for decisions made leading into this weekend — questions about the course setup, which made Bethpage Black toothless and a birdie fest, and questions about pairing decisions. He understood that comes with the territory as a losing captain and placed the responsibility for the defeat on his own shoulders afterward.

“When you are the leader of the team and you’re the coach, the captain, whatever you want to call it, and you lose, you have to take the blame,” Bradley said. “This is no one else’s fault. This is no one else’s, the PGA of America or whatever it is. Sometimes in sports, you go up against an opponent that sometimes beats you; they play better. And they played better than us. We gave it a great fight, that’s for sure.”

Though, his players didn’t want the blame centered on one person, especially their captain, as Thomas cut in on a question posed to Bradley about whether he was out-captained by Donald.

“We needed to make more putts,” Thomas said. “That’s what Keegan needed; he needed us to make more putts. That’s what he needed to do.”

Adare Manor in Ireland is two years away and the U.S. does not want to drop a third consecutive Ryder Cup.

Bradley won’t be leading the American team in 2027 and the failures of another Ryder Cup will require deep examination. Home-course advantage didn’t pay off even as Bradley was given as much assistance as the PGA of America felt was needed.

Despite a second straight defeat, Bradley is remaining positive and sees lessons learned at Bethpage Black are ones that could pay off in Ireland in two years time.

“Everybody put me in the best position to succeed,” Bradley said. “It was a unique approach. I had to learn on the fly. But I also had been on a lot of these teams, and I had the resources of all the vice captains and all the previous captains, as well, that helped me.

“I think the goal was to give the captaincy a fresh face, a different way to go about things. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. But we have some momentum going forward. I think we can continue down this road, and I’ll help out the best I can to help the next captain or the next whoever it is.”

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