SUTTON, Mass. — Keegan Bradley knew the stakes when he accepted the Ryder Cup captaincy.
“You win, it is glory for a lifetime. You lose, it is ‘I will have to sit down with this for the remainder of my life,'” Bradley stated Monday in his first public feedback since leaving Bethpage Black final month. “There is not any a part of me that thinks I will ever recover from this.”
A two-time Ryder Cup competitor, Bradley was appointed captain of the U.S. staff final 12 months and introduced a stacked squad to face Europe on New York’s Lengthy Island. Though they had been favored to win at house, the Individuals fell right into a 11½-4½ gap heading into the ultimate day — the largest Sunday morning deficit in fashionable Ryder Cup historical past.
“You place a lot into it, and you’ve got all this planning, and the primary two days went as poorly as we may have ever thought,” stated Bradley, who wanted to step outdoors the tent and collect himself earlier than he addressed the staff Saturday evening. “It was fairly emotional. It was unhappy, to be trustworthy.”
“You win, it is glory for a lifetime. You lose, it is ‘I will have to sit down with this for the remainder of my life. There is not any a part of me that thinks I will ever recover from this. … This effing occasion has been so brutal to me. … It is such a bizarre factor to like one thing a lot that simply would not offer you something.”
U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley
The Individuals received 8½ factors from the 12 singles matches Sunday to make the ultimate rating shut.
Bradley has accepted the blame for some errors, including a setup that mixed with the rain to make the notoriously tough course extra manageable. Others have pointed to his pairings and even the choice to depart himself off the staff.
“Because the Ryder Cup to now has been one of many hardest instances in my life,” Bradley stated at media day for the Vacationers Championship, the place he’s the defending champion.
“I actually would take pleasure in taking part in in yet another. I do not know if I will get the possibility,” stated Bradley, who at 39 would have been older than all however one participant, Justin Rose, on both staff this 12 months.
“This effing occasion has been so brutal to me. I do not know if I need to play. No, I do,” Bradley rapidly corrected himself. “It is such a bizarre factor to like one thing a lot that simply would not offer you something.”
Bradley stated he’s nonetheless attempting to emerge from the “Ryder Cup fog” and get again to being simply one of many prime gamers on the PGA Tour. After being named captain, he received the 2024 BMW Championship, and his win in Hartford this June gave him extra particular person victories in that span than any American aside from Scottie Scheffler.
A special captain may need picked him for the U.S. staff.
Though there have been moments when he wished he had made himself the primary taking part in Ryder Cup captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963, Bradley stated he is aware of he made the appropriate choice.
“I will without end surprise and need that I had an opportunity to play there,” Bradley stated. “The primary observe day, I used to be out on the tee, and I used to be watching the fellows stroll down the green all collectively, and I stated: ‘I want I used to be taking part in. That is what it is all about. I am lacking out.’
“By the second or third day I used to be like, ‘It is a good factor I am not taking part in,’ as a result of I used to be so bodily exhausted. … Good factor I did not do it as a result of it might have been unhealthy,” Bradley stated. “I simply did not suppose I may do each jobs.”
Even so, spending the previous 12 months because the Ryder Cup captain gave Bradley an expertise few can declare. At tour stops throughout the nation — earlier than the gamers knew if they’d be on the staff — he felt the love from American followers.
“I did not anticipate the assist,” Bradley stated. “Within the historical past of the sport — again to Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus — I do not know if any of them acquired to expertise what I skilled this 12 months.
“I acquired to expertise one thing within the sport of golf that I do not suppose anybody’s ever skilled: the place I am the Ryder Cup captain but additionally competing at a really excessive stage, and successful tournaments, and contending in tournaments. And it was actually unimaginable.”
