After another loss in the Ryder Cup, this time a 2014 defeat that seemed to leave the U.S. team in shambles, the PGA of America put together a Ryder Cup Task Force. The idea was to try and figure out what was wrong with the American approach to the biennial matches.
The president of the PGA at the time was Paul Levy, who was also the general manager at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells. Levy made a bold statement about the impact of the task force.
“This is maybe the most important thing we can communicate about the task force,” Levy said. “This isn’t about winning in 2016. This is about winning seven of the next 10 Ryder Cups.”
The task force was to consider everything, from how players qualify for the event to how invested players should be in the matches to how a logical succession of captains should look.
Ten years later, it’s interesting to look back at that task force, knowing that the best-laid plans of that group of 11 people have been blown out of the water. For a variety of reasons, not all of which are the fault of the PGA, whatever blueprint the task force wanted for the future of the U.S. Ryder Cup team was nowhere to be seen this week when 38-year-old Keegan Bradley was named the U.S. captain for 2025.
Bradley might end up being one of the greatest captains in the history of the Ryder Cup. He might do a great job and the U.S. team might still lose. None of that is the point.
The point is that the way this captain was appointed seemed haphazard at best. Bradley admitted he hadn’t even been contacted for the captaincy before getting a phone call two weeks ago offering him the job. Tiger Woods, a favorite for the job, turned the PGA of America down, and Phil Mickelson, who would have made perfect sense for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, is playing on the LIV Tour.
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Again, while the PGA of America might have had the best of intentions with that task force 10 years ago, golf is in a vastly different place than it was in 2014, when the Americans were throttled in the matches 16.5-11.5. In the four matches played since then, the United States and Europe each have two wins, each winning on home soil.
At the time, the idea of a task force was questioned throughout golf as an overreaction to the 2014 loss, the bad vibes between captain Tom Watson and player Phil Mickelson and the idea that the United States had lost eight of 11 Ryder Cups. Streamlining the process seemed like a good idea, though.
Best-laid plans
Ten years later, the process is anything but streamlined. Who could have seen in 2014 the rise of LIV golf and the divide in the game that would include a handful of great players not earning Ryder Cup points through PGA Tour events? Who would have thought a few older players who might fit the captain’s seat, like Stewart Cink, would be bypassed? Would Tiger Woods actually turn down the captaincy? And so it goes.
Again, none of this is a slam against Bradley, who seemed thrilled to be given the captaincy just two years after being bitterly disappointed by not getting a captain’s pick for the 2023 team from captain Zach Johnson. Bradley has played on two Ryder Cup teams, is a contemporary of many of the players he will captain and may have a strong understanding of what the modern player wants from the Ryder Cup experience.
Bradley may lead the Americans — including LIV players, he said – to a win at Bethpage Black in New York in 2025. Or the Europeans might simply outplay the U.S. team and score a victory on American soil.
Either way, there are certainly questions about how the Ryder Cup process is being handled these days by the PGA of America. In the end, the manner of Bradley being awarded the captain’s position may have little to do with who wins or who loses. But it did seem a bit rushed and a bit forced.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Keegan Bradley’s surprise pick as Ryder Cup captain comes about oddly
