How Keegan Bradley’s caddy learned about Ryder Cup captaincy

It’s been a whirlwind year for Keegan Bradley. Last August, Bradley missed out on being the captain’s pick for the 2023 USA Ryder Cup team in devastating fashion. Ten months later, Bradley was was named captain of the American team for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black – a stunning surprise. A few weeks after that, Jim Furyk named Bradley an assistant captain for the 2024 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal in Canada. A few weeks later thatBradley won the BMW Championshiphis seventh career PGA Tour title, then joined the Presidents Cup team as captain. Bradley continued to post a 2-1-0 record in the Americans’ victory over the Internationals, 18.5-11.5.

WOW. That’s a lot of action, and there was one man by Bradley’s side through it all: his caddy, Scott Vail.

On this week’s episode of Subpar, Vail said hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz a number of anecdotes about his life and career on Tour, but his story of what it was like to find out his boss had just been tapped as the next US Ryder Cup captain was particularly compelling.

“Monday morning (after the Travelers Championship), I got up at 7 a.m. and I had a text from him saying — you know, we text a lot, but we’ve been on the road for about four weeks,” Vail began. . “It was weird to have it, you know, right in the morning. The text read: “Call me, I need to talk to you.” And I’m like, oh, what did I do? What did I do last week that set me off today?

“So I pick up the phone right away. Call him. I’m like, hey, is everything okay? And he’s like, you’re not going to believe this. And he tells me they want him as Ryder Cup captain.

“And I was like, oh my god. Like, at first I was shocked and then excited. I was almost crying because I know how much it means to him, how much it meant to not be on the team last year. It was just like this whirlwind of emotions and I’m sitting there kind of, I’m sure I was crying a little bit.”

Vail has had a front-row seat to Bradley’s anguish and triumph over the past year, and he said he’s thrilled Bradley has the opportunity to captain the team.

“I know how hard he works and I care about him as a boss, as a friend,” he said. “And yeah, he let me know, and I was like, well, you’re going to do it? You have to, right? Captain America! Bethpage, you went to school there.”

The hardest part, Vail said, was keeping it a secret until an official announcement was made.

“I had to keep my mouth shut, I think 10 to 14 days,” Vail said. “He’s like, don’t tell anybody. And I’m like, I didn’t tell a soul. And that was hard to do. But yeah, it’s going to be great.”

For more from Vail, including what it was like when Bradley he didn’t get good news about the Ryder Cup in 2023, watch the full episode below.

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As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural women’s varsity player class, Jessica can blow away anyone in the masthead. She can also drive them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her series The original interview, “A Round With,” debuted in November 2015 and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.