KEEGAN BRADLEY’S RYDER CUP CONDRUM is getting more complicated

Keegan Bradley has a enviable problem. He is playing too good golf For a captain of the Ryder Cup.

Bradley did not emerge victorious Sunday afternoon at Arnold Palmer Invitational, but out of 49 not winners in the field on Sunday, his last round was probably more impressive. An eight under 64 years of age, including a course-cord 29 setting in the pre-ninet, The best round of the day out of three shots. At the time the dust settled in the evening, it would end T5, good for its 25th-25s of the 2025 season, and good enough to begin itself within the striking distance of 12 balls in it Sorting of US Ryder Cup points.

But Sunday’s joy at Bay Hill for Bradley, the player, was Sunday’s concern in Bay Hill for Bradley, the captain of Ryder Cup. “The problem,” as it was, is that if Keegan plays much better golf, he could play himself out of his work as captain of Ryder Cup – and THEir A job as Ryder Cup player.

Bradley’s age was one of his greatest dangers when America’s PGA chose it as Captain Ryder Cup. At the age of 38, Kegs represented one of the youngest captains in Cup history – new enough to play the team itself. The idea was not very strange: he would be almost qualified for the Cup in Rome a year ago, and had shown a supremacy about the type of hot spurts that help his age safe at Ryder Cup Relevancy.

Bradley minimized the risk of such an event, suggesting that the captain’s responsibilities did not leave much time for the necessary competitive preparation play In case. (He further led that point during the President’s Cup, where he served as a Game Captain Assistant and expressed concern about the idea of ​​doing the same in Ryder Cup.)

But then there came a victory outside nowhere at the BMW Championship, and then a great performance under the American flag in the President’s Cup. Suddenly, Bradley is defending his bets, stating that he would only play on the Ryder Cup team if he qualified for one of the six automatic offers under the Ryder Cup point system – and that he would abolish himself as captain if such events appeared.

“It will be really difficult for me to make that team, but if I do the team, I’ll play,” he said. “I don’t see myself being the choice of a captain. But I will be proud that I will simply be the captain. ”

On Saturday 64 at Arnold Palmer only prompted the flames of a possible constitutional crisis. While Bradley remains safe outside the automatic bid territory, it would not take much more than a hot bar that includes the next month to delay Bradley’s name in the main position-one fact could not deny in his post-round interviews.

“I would like (to have a single match of Ryder Cup),” he said laughing, an eye with the suggestion he could play at the event. “I would love him. It’s always in the back of my mind, but days like this, I can build for the rest of the year. “

Fortunately, we are still at least a few months removed from the credibility of a convention contested for the captain of Ryder Cup. The competition is fierce for the six automatic qualifiers on the US side, with those points currently occupied by Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffle, Bryson Dechambeau, Collin Morikawa, Mav Mcnealy and Patrick Cantlay. Three of those boys are the winners of the last four diplomas, and a fourth (Morikawa) is the fourth rank player in the world. But the remaining two points remain there to get, as long as Bradley can remove figures as Sunday winner in Bay Hill, Russell Henley.

A mind divided between the game and the capture of a Ryder cup is far from an ideal space for a captain, but it is the space space occupied by Keegan Bradley as winter turns into spring. He has until the end of the BMW championship, where he will return as a royal champion, to be positioned as one of the six automatic Cup qualifiers. If not, he will choose the six “captain’s elections” left in the Tour championship next week, and bring the team to Bethpage next month.

For now, all he can do is play his best golf. This can make a complex wine, but in this case, the complex can be good.