CHARLOTTE — Whether Keegan Bradley is playing in Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship or if he’s a spectator, he’ll be carefully analyzing what he sees.
As the U.S. captain for the Ryder Cup, he’s vested in the outcome and the details this week at Quail Hollow.
“I think these majors kind of separate guys,” Bradley said Tuesday. “You see a guy hang in there on Sunday, that’s an impressive thing, especially around a course like this. Like I said, I’m still out there playing and trying to do my thing.”
So this could be a big week in the formation of the U.S. team, both in how the points standings shake out and the conclusions reached from seeing roster contenders.
“There’s a lot of points at stake here, and the movement on the points list, it can be a lot in these events,” Bradley said. “You see a guy, maybe a younger guy, that stands up to the pressure and can feel this, this is as close as we’re going to get to Bethpage in that the pressure on Sundays is a lot in a major, and you can see a lot there.”
There’s no urgency in making selections, but golfers will be trying to make good impressions in front of Bradley in this year’s second major.
“They’re always really tough decisions,” he said. “So the more information you can get helps you with those, but we’ll see how the team takes shape the next couple months.”
Bradley’s connection with the PGA Championship extends to 2011, when he won the tournament in Atlanta in his first major.
He still wants to be competitive in any tournament, but he admits to being consumed with his role as Ryder Cup captain.
“It’s constantly on my mind of how we’re going to go about doing this, the best way to go about doing this, how to run a proper meeting last week,” he said. “I think that’s been the biggest obstacle is shutting that part of my brain off, which is interesting because, when I get inside the ropes in a tournament, it’s really the only time I can do that.”
Bradley, 38, rarely factors into the leaderboard in majors these days. In his last 10 such outings, his tie for 18th place last May at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club marks his best finish.
But he’s far from forgotten on the Tour. Among his seven career championships, he has won a tournament in each of the past three years.
Still, it’s a long shot that Bradley would land a position on the Ryder Cup team as a player as well.
“It’s different this year because my main job at the Ryder Cup is to be the captain,” he said. “Right now, I go about every day as the captain. I don’t even think about me as a player at this point. If I get to the end of the year and I’m in that conversation, I’ll change that.”
–Bob Sutton, Field Level Media
