Team USA Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley has won the BMW Championship and $3.6 million. Those who were picked ahead of him to play in the 2023 Ryder Cup, like Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay, didn’t finish in the top 10. Heck, Jordan Spieth couldn’t even play at Castle Pines. It seems the ‘boys club’ isn’t quite in form.
It’s well documented that Zack Johnson picked several golfers ahead of Keegan Bradley to be on the Ryder Cup team. An emotional scene in the Netflix show Full Swing involving Bradley being told he was not on the team tugged at golfing fans’ heartstrings, and the criticism of how Team USA handled things in 2023 only increased.
Justin Thomas seems to have taken Bradley’s spot, but he is just one player. Zach Johnson had other spots to fill, and he gave these spots to Rickie Fowler and Sam Burns. The other spots seemed to be locked for certain players, according to Thomas. As for Thomas, he endorsed Keegan Bradley for Captaining Team USA, and the two of them have denied any rumors of a feud.
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Kyle Porter, CBS’ golf writer, posted a tweet comparing the number of PGA Tour wins in the last two years by Keegan Bradley and the so-called boys’ club. He said that Bradley has won 3 while Ryder Cup players Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, and Collin Morikawa have a combined 2.
PGA Tour wins the last two seasons.
• Keegan Bradley: 3
• Ryder Cuppers Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa combined: 2
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) August 25, 2024
Amidst all the drama, Keegan Bradley has won the BMW Championship, and fans are making snide comments about the boys club and wondering if its members will play in the Ryder Cup.
Fans Rally in support of Keegan Bradley
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“Almost exactly one year since he was snubbed from the Ryder Cup team because he wasn’t in the boys club, Keegan is more of a fan favorite than ever before. The tides are turning, fans have realized who the true good guys are. Love to see it,” wrote one user who felt for Keegan Bradley when he was left out of the Ryder Cup team. Although Bradley has said previously that he is on good terms with Justin Thomas, he admits that he’s not very friendly with the guys, and there are others, such as Fred Couples, who say the same.
With the form he is in, Bradley could be the playing captain, and he has said, “I want to play on the team. I feel like I’m still in the prime of my career and can make this team.” But he won’t be a captain’s pick, as he wants to qualify on points. One Twitter user humorously shared a gif of a football player celebrating apart from the team, captioning it, “Keegan Bradley on the first tee at Bethpage Black after he sends himself out first as playing captain at the 2025 Ryder Cup.”
The boys club is most probably just a response to the nature of the PGA Tour season. Golfers have to go from city to city each week and live their lives on the tour. Part of that is sharing houses with fellow pros. It is common to see professionals who are friendly with each other share boarding and other parts of day-to-day living. A Twitter user probably noticed that the so-called boys club does have a habit of doing this and replied to Kyle Porter’s tweet, saying, “Yeah but number of airbnbs shared with Ryder cup captains = 0.”
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As captain, Zach Johnson would bear the responsibility for Team USA’s significant loss in the 2023 Ryder Cup. Fans’ memories are long, and Zach Johnson has become the lightning rod for everything that went wrong in the Cup. It seems that Zach Johnson is not going to be forgiven anytime soon, as seen from fans’ comments that specifically fault him for not picking Bradley. One user wrote, “ZJ will never, NEVER live this down. Worst captain ever,” and another wrote, “Zach Johnson absolutely failed as Captain – not only on the course via poor player management, but in using friendship as the determining factor for choosing his captains picks. Horrible job. Karma is a bitch. Go Keegan!!!!”
Whether or not it was the boys club that played a part in the downfall of Team USA’s Ryder Cup hopes or several other factors, Keegan Bradley will be hoping to give Team Europe a much better contest in next year’s Ryder Cup and if he keeps winning like he did in the BMW Championship, he would be a rare case of captaining his team and playing with them in the ever entertaining Ryder Cup.
