Keegan Bradley revealed he had a brief discussion with Tiger Woods last week at the Open Championship about being involved with his US Ryder Cup team.
It had been mooted that fifteen-time major winner Woods was the front runner to captain USA in the 2025 and 2027 Ryder Cups in Bethpage and Adare Manor but a fortnight ago 38-year-old Bradley was announced as the shock choice A USA captain for next year’s edition.
Woods is now expected to skipper the Stars and Stripes in Limerick in 2027 and Bradley has sounded out Woods’ availability as a potential vice captain next year.
“I’ve told Tiger that I want him to be as involved as he wants to be. With the British Open going on, we’re not really chatting too much about that,” said Bradley.
“We both have a job to do and I don’t want to bother Tiger with that. I think in the coming months, we’re still 14 months out here, so we’ve got a long time.”
Bradley, a two-time Ryder Cup player in 2012 and 2014, was controversially left out of Zach Johnson’s side last September in Marco Simone GC and had harboured hopes of qualifying for next year’s team.
Bradley hasn’t ruled out the chances of being a playing Ryder Cup captain in Bethpage and believes the off course distraction of being a captain will help his performances on the golf course.
“I want to try to feel like I can use this to my advantage. I have a real tough time leaving golf at the golf course, I’m thinking about something in my swing or a tough shot I’ve got coming up the next couple days or FedExCup, World Ranking points, stuff like that that doesn’t help you play well.
“I’ve been able to really leave that because once I leave the course and when I’m home, I’m really thinking a lot about the Ryder Cup. So I’m trying to use that as sort of almost like a distraction away from my real job. I’m hoping that I can utilize that.”
Bradley has already made his first move as US Ryder Cup captain, appointing former US Open champion Webb Simpson as one of his vice captains.
For now, the American’s priority is to book his spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs for the fourteenth straight year before knuckling down on his Ryder Cup duties this winter.
“I saw Zach this week, yesterday on the putting green. He was excited about Webb being vice captain. To be honest with you, I heard from a lot of captains, texts and congratulatory stuff. I plan on probably when the season’s over really starting to reach out to the old captains and sort of picking their brains on what they thought they did right, what they thought they did wrong. Winning captains, losing captains both, I think you can learn a lot from that.”
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