After Keegan Bradley closed out the winning point in the Presidents Cup with his sigh-of-relief 1-up victory over Si Woo Kim at Royal Montreal, he hopped in a cart with captain Jim Furyk for what one might describe as an exit interview. The two men talked for 10 minutes. It was the only time during the week that Bradley, selected to be a captain’s assistant before Furyk recruited him as a competitor, gained insight into a job he will now undertake as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain.
“I kind of just talked him through how we got from here to there and some of the thinking that we did through the week,” Furyk, told Golf Digest by phone. “He had some great questions. But he had his year -out press conference today? Yeah, he hasn’t had much time for that, for things to slow down a bit. It gets real now.”
However, Bradley and European captain Luke Donald successfully held the one-year (or so) countdown press conference at New York Tuesday in preparation for the 45th Ryder Cup scheduled for September 26-28, 2025, in Farmingdale at Bethpage Black Golf Course. After he contributed to the American team 10-0 record over the International team to win the Presidents Cup, Bradley has a lot more pressure as the captain of the U.S. team that was soundly defeated by Donald-led European team in Rome.
Bradley, 38, is expected to consult with Furyk and other U.S. captains—and also, he said Tuesday, from Tiger Woods—after receiving the call in July to lead the American team without any prior experience.
After the victory for the United States in Montreal, Bradley was asked about what he could take out of that week that could be valuable to him at Bethpage. He painted with a broad brush, pointing to how Furyk, who was on the ‘wrong’ side as the captain in 2018, managed the team facility, going to the extent of describing it as the best team facility he has come across in two visits each to the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. “We are going to mimic a lots things what Jim Furyk did this week,” he said. “He set a culture here for us and we’re going to carry that over into Bethpage.”
It’s a culture that has been promoted since the 2014 Ryder Cup Task Force and implemented in 2016 at Hazeltine, which, as Furyk explains it, is simply, “to put the players in the best possible position to play their best.”
On Tuesday, Bradley spoke of another aspect of the Furyk formula that impressed him.
“I think what Jim did great was we got off to that incredible start, and the second session, we got beat 0-5, which was pretty shocking. He just stuck with the plan. He didn’t panic. Didn’t change the pairings. He kept everything very level,” Bradley said. “I think that was a time in the tournament where he could have panicked a bit and decided to switch the plan up. It was very clear that he was going to stick with the script and go with what they had figured out before the week started, and I think a lot of the players responded well to that.”
Despite his inexperience, one inherent advantage that Bradley enjoys is playing on home soil; the host team has won by no fewer than five points in each of the last five Ryder Cup matches. The last road win came in 2012 when Europe rallied from a four-point deficit at Medinah Country Club near Chicago.
Having Brandt Snedeker as one of his vice captains will ultimately be a plus. Furyk tapped Snedeker to replace Bradley as an assistant captain in Montreal, an intelligent choice given that Snedeker and Webb Simpson already had been named to Bradley’s leadership team.
“Sneds did a fantastic job and was phenomenal with the player, and having him in that room, he’ll be able to come in and he’ll be able to tell Keegan what it looked like behind the scene for us as captain and I think that will be a big help,” Furyk said.
When asked whether owing to Furyk being in New York next fall, Bradley could not resist something or the else, he was quite evasive. Although Furyk has been through the two at the top of the roster and having been so glowingly praised by Bradley in Montreal, I have to think that Furyk being retained as a vice captain is a pretty good bet. Woods might have a role, too.
So the next time I switch and talk to Tiger a lot when the announcement was made. He or she was extremely, extremely helpful. Had a lot good advices, it was nice that Bradley mentioned that. “The pressure of participating in the Presidents Cup, and then the playoffs, and everything in between, I guess, well, I sort of hit the pause button on it, and I will be dealing with that in the coming weeks and months. But I could obviously talk to Tiger and have great conversations. He is a role model to all of us, and I can tell you he has a number of good ideas on what we can do as a team.
Furyk has some other ideas as well though and he and Bradley discussed are to have a lot of strategy sessions in the next few months.
“I told Keegan that I was there for him and we made a compact that we should sit down and go over some other things,” Furyk said. “During a time he was an assistant captain, however, when we began to work on the event and the pairings, he was not there.” He only had to be a player and no more. I said to him, ‘I’ll do whatever I can to get you out’.”