If separation is difficult to do, absorb a loss as one Ryder Cup captain sounds almost impossible to do.
Well, not for him I DO exactly – a captain has to lose, of course – but more to process, to come to terms with, to live with. Zach Johnson would tell you that. That’s how you want it Padraig Harrington. And Jim Furyk. And Nick Faldo. And Tom Watson. And many others who came out on the short end of the biennial team event that on paper is an exhibition but in reality is a contest whose participants burn so badly to win that they might trade a digit for a 1-up singles triumph. Or, in Bradley’s case, a limb.
Pardon the gruesome imagery, but Bradley doesn’t just bleed red; blue and white also fill the veins. From the moment PGA of America brass surprisingly asked Bradley to take the reins of the 2025 team – the offer came in June 2024 – Bradley will tell you he went to bed thinking about the games and woke up thinking about them. He struggled with who to choose. Who to pair up with. Who sits down and when. How to organize the course. How. . . to . . . win. That was it. A special mission. Losing just wasn’t an option, but then, of course, that’s exactly what happened: a 15-13 loss to the Europeans this could have been much more demoralizing if not for a late charge by the USA in the singles.
The Americans were devastated. You can hear it in their soft voices Sunday night in Bethpage. You could see it in their bright eyes. But the result seemed to cut Bradley deeper than most, if not all. That became clear a few weeks later when he opened up to AP golf writer Doug Ferguson. “You win, it’s the glory of a lifetime,” Bradley said “You lose, I’m going to have to sit with that for the rest of my life. There’s no part of me that thinks I’ll ever get over that.”
EVER? So much for time healing all wounds.
Bradley is on the field this week Players Championship. He opened with a five-over 77, a round largely derailed by the quadruple-bogey 9 he made on the par-5 11th after his ball clipped a tree and disappeared. But Bradley is not the one to surrender his weapons. On Friday, on the back of an eagle on the par-5 2nd and five back-9 birdies, he signed for a six-under 66 that put him back in the red and comfortably under the deuce line.
“This course is as stressful for a golf course as we play anywhere in the world,” said Bradley, who has lost his last two starts and has just one top-30 in 2026. “Every shot is, like, brutal. So, very proud of how I played today. I really needed this round.
“I just love this tournament so much and if I didn’t play the weekend it would be gross.”
This is about Bradley. He feels. When he loves something, he really does loves that. When he commits to something, he really does PERFORMED. When he looks at an all-or-nothing 8-footer, good luck to that 8-footer.
Bradley was asked if mentally he has felt liberated this season now that he has given up one of his captains. And just then Bradley opened up again, with such openness that you felt it was a question he wanted to answer.
“Listen, it’s been a little rough,” he began. “I’m still angry about the Ryder Cup. So I try to separate myself and move on, but it’s hard. I think about it a lot. I think about the guys a lot and I’m still in the process of going through it all.”
What, he wondered, do you feel exactly? Is it regret?
“No,” he said. “Unless you’re the captain of the Ryder Cup team, you just have no idea what goes into it and the emotional toll it takes on you. I think like a lot of guys who do it, they’re basically done playing, so they never – I’m the first person to have to deal with that, get back out there, try to be one of the best players in the world, so I continue to be one of the best players in the world.”
You have to feel for the guy. A year ago, while managing his duties as captain, he played so well that he put himself in a potentially difficult situation with his wild character choices for himself. (He chose not to.) Then came a crushing loss of spirit. And now he comes trying to make cuts with the weight of that defeat still weighing heavily on him.
It makes you wonder if Bradley’s only route to a Ryder Cup exorcism would come through a second shot at a captaincy. Then again, what do you want another one loss to do it?
“I think any Ryder Cup captain who loses would like to do it again,” Bradley said. “But that’s not up to me.”
