Will U.S. team make the same noise without Bradley?

The Ryder Cup captain will stay in the cart, an unselfish decision that may backfire.

Keegan Bradley

They don’t play these Ryder Cups on golf courses anymore. They play them on enemy battlefields. When the Cup is here, Europeans walk in with heads swiveling, like they’re entering Cameron Indoor Stadium without a support animal. When the Cup is over there, Americans might as well be walking into Anfield and, yes, they’d be walking alone.

The U.S. team has lost seven consecutive Cups on European greens, fairways and trenches. It has lost by five points, seven, five, one, nine, three and one, respectively, all the way back to 1993. But at home the Americans have won four of the past six, by a combined margin of 12 points, and that counts a disastrous nine-point loss at Oakland Hills in 2004, when captain Hal Sutton succumbed to the fever dream of playing Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson together, and when no alcohol was sold on the premises.

On the final weekend in September, the Americans welcome the Europeans to the jungle known as Bethpage Black, on Long Island. The sponsoring PGA of America offered tickets for $750 on each competition day, and its president said it was a “good deal,” because concessions were included. If the intent was to price the event beyond the grasp of the great unwashed, it failed. The Cup sold out almost immediately. There will be no polite, sympathy tsk-tsks for Europeans who miss putts or make bogeys, and U-S-A chants will bang all eardrums. And there is no DMZ between player and fan. It will be a mighty test for the collective equilibrium of Rory McIlroy, Tyrell Hatton, Robert MacIntyre and other Europeans who don’t always turn the other cheek. To be fair, the Euro fans in Rome two years ago were no more controllable.

But for every cringe, there will be five or six fireworks moments, followed by the longest, booziest party seen since the Florida Panthers drank their way into July. An enterprising photographer might even catch Cameron Young smiling. Young, Ben Griffin and U.S. Open champ J.J. Spaun are the rookies on the U.S. team, and Spaun qualified automatically. Captain Keegan Bradley prized talent over experience, and recent performance over just about anything, with one exception: He didn’t pick Bradley himself.

Bradley won at Hartford this summer, beating Tommy Fleetwood, and is the 11th ranked player in the world. The top ten are in the Ryder Cup, on both sides, and so are 12 through 15. Bradley had talked about this decision for weeks but, on Wednesday, said he never considered playing, because the captaincy has become a complex, time-sucking, soul-crushing burden. Oh, the irony. Two years ago Bradley was wrongly snubbed by U.S. captain Zach Johnson, who went with Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler instead. Thomas earned his way on this team, but the other two didn’t, and Bradley refused to give them a Distinguished Service Award. But he also deprived himself of a feisty competitor who plays on an emotional precipice, exactly the type of player the U.S. crowd celebrates.

There are five assistant captains, including former captain Jim Furyk. Bradley could have given him the lineup responsibilities. Or he could have sat out Thursday and Friday and played early singles on Sunday, finishing up in time to ride the cart around the course, like Gen. Patton in his Jeep.

Then again, Bradley is trying to fuse a team out of a dozen stubborn artists, trying to figure which guys should play alternate-shot together and whose favorite brand of golf ball they should use, trying to make sure nobody’s burned out with five matches in three days but nobody’s stale either, trying to learn who wants to partner with Bryson DeChambeau and who would rather not. By removing himself, he’s showing that there is no “I” in “team,” although Ryder Cup hanger-on Michael Jordan always replied that there is an “m” and an “e.”

Bradley also fetishizes the Ryder Cup to the point that he has a suitcase at home that he hasn’t opened since 2012. That was the last time he was on a winning Cup team, and he vowed he wouldn’t break the seal until he won another one.

Bradley’s move benefited Griffin, who was ranked 127th two years ago and, until this year, had never made a cut in a major. Then he finished eighth in the PGA and 10th in the U.S. Open, and he won Colonial and finished second at Memorial in a 2-week span. That gives the lie to the theory that the PGA Tour is a closed shop these days, that the “signature events” have made it impossible for the newbie golfers to find the path upward. As McIlroy impolitely told one complaining player during a meeting, “Play better.” Griffin did so.

Griffin gave up golf in 2021 and took a job as a mortgage loan officer, but he gave it One More Chance when he kept remembering how much his grandfather had loved the game. He might have sealed the deal with Bradley at Baltimore two weeks ago. Griffin stumbled his way into the Sunday round with double-double-bogey in the first three holes. He then birdied seven of the remaining 15 and turned a swandive into a 69, and a 12th-place finish. If he’s three-down after five holes in a Ryder match, his gallery shouldn’t go anywhere.

The stock partnerships of Scottie Scheffler-Sam Burns and Xander Schauffele-Patrick Cantlay should extend into this Cup. Cantlay had scuffled most of the year but finished second in the Tour Championship. His dour visage and sloth-like pace have irritated the Europeans before. Phil Mickelson claimed you could literally see the grass grow underneath Cantlay’s feet on Sunday, as he and Fleetwood fell two holes behind the next group. But then Fleetwood kept his cool and won the tournament anyway.

Euro captain Luke Donald could trot out 11 of the 12 players who won the 2023 Cup if he wants and, for that matter, 12 of the 12 eggs. The only obvious change, if Donald heeds the points list, would be Rasmus Hogjaard replacing his twin brother Nikolai. Fleetwood and Justin Rose won two of the three FedEx Cup playoff events, and Fleetwood was third, fourth and first. They join McIlroy, Hatton, MacIntyre, Jon Rahm, Ludwig Aberg, Viktor Hovland, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka in a formidable lineup that would be a significant favorite in a neutral gym.

Are there enough veterans on Donald’s side who know how to let Bethpage’s noise go in one ear and out the other? Probably, but here they’re dealing in surround-sound.