– First things first: Did the US captain, Keegan Bradley, make the right decision by not including himself as one of the six picks? With a cool head and in capital letters: YES. His decision is emotional fuel for the locker room, a leadership stroke, and another reason to blindly follow a great captain who has made such a sacrifice, as it is very unlikely he will have the chance to play in the Ryder Cup again, given the fierce competition and abundance of talent in the US team. On the other hand, it seems very complicated to manage the stress of a player-captain when resolving issues where he would be both judge and party, and every detail would be scrutinised: his playing partner, the number of matches to play… It’s not the same to play with Scheffler as with a rookie, if the most crude and simple example is allowed.
– Bradley was heartbroken when he missed out on the Ryder in Rome, having finished 11th in the 2023 Ryder standings and with the captain, Zach Johnson, choosing up to three players who were behind him in that ranking: Burns, Fowler, and Thomas. Well, that’s exactly what he has done with Maverick McNealy, who this time was ahead of others like Burns (again), Young, and Cantlay. No one says his decision isn’t right, in fact, at first glance, it seems it is, but it shows that, from the captain’s side, not everything is as simple as it might have seemed to him two years ago…
– Only six players from the US team remain from the Rome 2023 team (Scheffler, Schauffele, Thomas, Morikawa, Cantlay, and Burns), but that’s almost a usual rule for the stars and stripes team. In fact, from the 2021 team to 2023, six players also changed.
– Curious paradoxes: Zach Johnson was once a captain who showed no attachment to the American LIV Golf guys, but in the end, he included Brooks Koepka among his six picks. Bradley, however, was much more open to the possibility of choosing players from the Saudi league, but in the end, only one, Bryson DeChambeau, made it to his team, having earned the spot on his own merits. Well, just a simple curiosity, because the real and certain thing is that Koepka had earned his place in the team through his performance that year in the Majors (second in the Masters and first in the PGA), and no American from LIV really dazzled in 2025, beyond DeChambeau.
– It makes much more sense to think that Sam Burns is in the team for his magnificent putting statistics rather than being the close friend of the standard-bearer, Scottie Scheffler. Then, nothing guarantees that the best putter currently on the PGA Tour will be a lethal weapon in match play, but who would have imagined that Scheffler and Koepka would be thrashed in that historic foursome two years ago against Hovland and Aberg (they lost 9 and 7).
– It would be interesting to know how much time Bradley and his vice-captains spent considering the option of leaving out a Collin Morikawa who seems out of sorts… But we will never know.
– Patrick Cantlay can be exasperating with his slow play. Raise your hand if you’ve ever channel-surfed when the Californian appears on screen, let alone if it’s on a green… Somehow he incites zapping, indeed. In the Ryder, fortunately, it won’t happen. It’s too exciting. Now more seriously: surely two weeks ago, this player’s choice wasn’t so clear, but he has elbowed his way in. And he will be a headache for the European team again, and not precisely (or not only) because of his slowness.
– There were still analysts in the United States who gave some chance to Jordan Spieth… We’ve missed something on this side of the pond, no matter how much the Texan is admired and even loved.
– Cameron Young sounds like all or nothing. Hero or villain. One imagines him winning everything, but also losing almost everything. In Rome, there was a rookie, Max Homa, who managed to carry the team’s weight on his shoulders in difficult moments. That role seems tailor-made in this case for J. J. Spaun. We need to see Young shouting and pumping fists at Bethpage to confirm that hot blood runs through his veins. If it doesn’t happen in a Ryder, it will never happen.
