‘This exciting event’: Keegan Bradley casts doubt on future of Ryder Cup in first comments since Bethpage

On Monday, American captain Keegan Bradley was at the scene of his biggest win of 2025, the Travelers Championship, speaking for the first time since his biggest defeat of the year, the Ryder Cup. And the American team’s defeat at Bethpage Black dominated the conversation.

At a media day for next year’s Travelers tournament, Bradley opened up about the “emotional” toll his Ryder Cup loss has taken on him, claiming he would never get over it and even wondering if he would ever want to play in “this exciting event” again.

Bradley reveals post-Ryder Cup has been ‘the toughest times of my life’

Even before Bradley accepted the captaincy of the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team, it was clear how important the biennial event was to him. Look no further than his emotional reaction to being rejected from the 2023 US team, famously filmed for Netflix’s ‘Full Swing’.

He knew full well, and frequently explained publicly before the tournament, that a Ryder Cup victory over Bethpage Black would have been celebrated for decades and possibly defined his career. On the other hand, captaining a loss on American soil would forever haunt the team.

He reiterated that Monday in his first comments to reporters since Bethpage left Black on the losing side.

“If you win, it’s glory for life,” Bradley said Monday. “If you lose, it’s: ‘I’m going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life.’”

With the outcome now decided, Bradley was brutally honest about how difficult living with the reality of losing has been in recent weeks.

“There’s no part of me that thinks I’m ever going to get over this,” Bradley admitted. “It’s been one of the toughest times of my life since the Ryder Cup until now.”

The American captain elaborated, explaining how difficult it was to watch the Europeans dominate the first two days of the Ryder Cup, given the years of planning and hard work he had put into the preparation.

“You put so much into it, and you have all this planning, and the first two days went as bad as we could have ever imagined,” he said. “It was quite emotional. It was sad, to be honest.”

But there was at least one positive that Bradley took away from his Ryder Cup captaincy. Bradley was among the best players in the world when he was chosen as Ryder Cup captain and was given the unique experience of traveling from Tour event to Tour event, with American fans cheering him on along the way.

“In the history of the game – going back to Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus – I don’t know if any of them have gone through what I went through this year,” Bradley explained. “I’ve experienced something in golf that I don’t think anyone has ever experienced: where I’m the Ryder Cup captain, but I’m also playing at a really high level, winning tournaments and competing in tournaments. And it was absolutely incredible.”

Bradley says Ryder Cup has been ‘so cruel to me’

Leading up to the Ryder Cup, the biggest question in the golf world was whether Bradley would pick himself to play for the US team. He finished 11th in the US Ryder Cup standings and was among the top-ranked Americans in the official World Golf Ranking.

Bradley ultimately decided against it as he felt he needed to focus on his duties as captain. But on Monday, Bradley revealed that he began to regret his decision during practice rounds at Bethpage.

“I’ll forever wonder and wish I had the opportunity to play there. The first day of practice, I was standing on the tee and I saw the guys all walking down the fairway together, and I said, ‘I wish I was playing. That’s what it’s all about. I’m missing something,” Bradley revealed.

But after a few tiring days on the Black Course, the American captain realized that being captain would have been bad.

“On the second or third day I thought, ‘It’s a good thing I’m not playing,’ because I was so physically exhausted. … Good thing I didn’t do it because it would have been bad.”

At 39 years old, playing some of the best golf of his life, Bradley could easily find himself in the conversation about making the 2027 U.S. Ryder Cup team, or even automatically qualifying for the squad.

But when asked about his Ryder Cup future, Bradley’s first response was whether he even wanted to play in the event anymore, given how “brutal” it has been for him.

“This exciting event has been so cruel to me. I don’t know if I want to play. No, I do,” Bradley said. “It’s so strange to love something so much that it doesn’t get you anything.”

Finally he came up with the idea.

“I would love to play another one,” Bradley admitted. “I don’t know if I’ll get the chance.”

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