Why Team USA’s Presidents Cup win sets up a complex dilemma

Somewhere, silently, Luke Donald must be giddy. Rory McIlroy, too. Actually, maybe they’re not even silent. Ryder Cup Europe loves themselves a group chat. Maybe they have one poppin’ off right now, celebrating the fact that their opponents’ next year just got more chaotic.

Team USA is their next opponent, after all. They would have been scouting this weekend. But while the result of the event — an 18.5 to 11.5 dismissal of the Internationals — would have been unsurprising, the way it finished was noteworthy for next year’s Ryder Cup: namely the fact that Keegan Bradley took a starring role.

The 38-year-old who will lead the Americans next year was referred to as “cap” almost as much as the real captain, Jim Furyk, an indicator of the massive difference in how much the golf world cares about each event. But you’ll recall that when Bradley became the surprise choice for Ryder Cup captain in 2025, he was also ushered into an assistant captain’s position for this Presidents Cup so that he could learn the ropes of captaincy under Furyk. No Ryder Cup top man in recent history has led that team without first being an assistant. Being an assistant doesn’t just mean driving carts and chasing down snacks — it also means walking the fairways with an earpiece and communicating with analytics staffers to make hard decisions involving his friends.

Bradley needed this Presidents Cup to better prepare for his time in the hot seat next year. Did he get that same level of preparation from playing on the team? He was set to learn so much in a lower-stakes event, one the Americans win every time. But then he did something he has done in recent years: he rode a spurt of elite ball-striking to win a big-time PGA Tour event. (His third win in a two-year stretch.) Suddenly he was an assistant captain no longer! Instead, Brandt Snedeker filled Bradley’s assistant role. And Bradley made the winning putt. All of which must have tickled Donald and McIlroy and others watching from afar.

Why? Because they know that this will kick off a year of questions about going double-duty next year. These guys are friendly with Bradley. They know his career and his desires and they’ve seen his affection for the red, white and blue. It was during one of the best weeks of Bradley’s career — that 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah — that Bradley starred over Donald, teaming up with Phil Mickelson to beat Donald twice. But then it was Donald going out first Sunday, claiming the first singles match, all while McIlroy raced to the 1st tee via police escort, shook Bradley’s hand and then beat him 2 and 1. If Bradley, then ranked 13th in the world, simply beats the man who had overslept that morning, everything about the Ryder Cup is different. Truly everything.

Many of them were together this July and discussed this exact hypothetical. Donald, McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Hojgaard shared dinner in London ahead of the Scottish Open. When Donald arrived with news about Bradley’s captaincy appointment, the players were in a state of disbelief. They weren’t surprised by the meaning in that exact moment, but what it could mean down the road, with Bradley’s form portending a possible playing-captain role, which McIlroy thinks is just not feasible.

“No absolutely not,” McIlroy said that week. “I’ve contemplated [being a playing-captain] for Adare [Manor, in 2027] and no, there’s much work that goes into it. I’ve seen what Luke went through preparing for Rome — there’s no way you can be as good a captain as you need to be and be a playing captain as well.”

When asked if he had given it much thought himself, McIlroy said, “No. It’s been mentioned and I’ve just said, ‘No way.’ It depends — what do you want? If you want to be the best captain you can be, you can’t play. And if you want to be the best player you can be, you can’t captain. It’s one or the other.”

That is McIlroy’s opinion but at some point in 2025 it will become Bradley’s reality — a simmering fire that he stoked in Montreal by giving us the highlight putt to cap off the opening session and earning the final point the Americans needed against the International’s top player. Unsurprisingly, the first questions reserved for the entire American team Sunday night went right to him, one of which centered on his playing prospects next fall in New York:

“I learned a lot from [Jim Furyk and his wife, Tabitha],” Bradley said. He admitted he feels conflicted about the idea, too. “I would love to join these guys and play next year. I don’t know how that would ever be possible, but seeing what Jim did, seeing how nervous I was today to play. But I’m going to push that down the road. Like I said, if I make the team on points, I’ll consider playing, but outside of that, I won’t do that because this is really important to me next year.

“I don’t care about my personal gains of playing in the tournament, I only care about winning the Ryder Cup. I think the best way to do that is to let these boys play and let them do what they do. We’ll see. I don’t see it happening, but we’ll see.”

Deflecting self-importance and pushing these decisions down the road. Cap is strumming the right strings there. He will no doubt continue talking that way as we push forward into 2025. The Ryder Cup captaincy requires plenty of press time, and Bradley is good at that. But he’s a good competitor, too. How will these divided duties play out? Being captain means plenty of time at PGA Tour events. It means plenty of time thinking about pairings, analyzing stats and forcing his way into opening-round tee times with players trying to make his team. So … what happens when Sahith Theegala shoots 75 at the Memorial while paired with Bradley’s 68? Speculation will follow.

We can’t be certain Bradley will ultimately take on those duties, but we do know that American sports fans love a spectacle and a story. Something special, something different to get behind — like college teammates reuniting to invigorate Madison Square Garden, or Mr. Irrelevant quarterbacking a Super Bowl team. Bradley’s chase for playing captain would have that juice. The fact that he was left off the losing American Ryder Cup side in 2023 — in favor of Justin Thomas — lingers in the minds of many because it was told in detail on Netflix’s Full Swing. When you log in to watch Season 3 of that show, I’m confident you will hear from Bradley on what this all means. And I believe you will almost surely see the season close with images of him clinching the final point Sunday afternoon. 

Sometime in February or March, the show will come out. Bradley will watch it and he’ll probably love it. “[Netflix] have been really good to me,” he said on Thursday. Soon after that, he’ll be asked about it, and asked again, and again, and the competitor in him will keep thinking about doing it again, both in the press and in his own mind. In other words, our 12-month Ryder Cup countdown is off to an exciting but complex start for the U.S. team. Which should make Team Europe plenty happy.