KEEGAN BRADLEY will not minimize it. The decision faces him Wednesday morning in Frisco, Texas? It is the “biggest decision” of his life.
“I’m ready for it,” Bradley said in Last week’s Tour championship. “I know this is the biggest decision of my life.”
And what decision is he, exactly? Well, only the biggest decision of the year in Golf – the six players to be elected to the US team as Ryder Cup “Captain’s Selections”. Bradley will make his official decision Wednesday morning at a ceremony at the US PGA headquarters at 11am EST, closing a “two-year process” that has seen the number of qualified players be reduced by some dozen in just one handful.
However, as is the case with any Ryder cup, only 12 players can make the team, and many more than 12 players are worthy of considering.
So how does the decision make? And what about Hubbub? We break down below.
Ryder Cup selections
Like most other things in Golf, the Ryder Cup selection process exists at the intersection of some complicated mathematics and some particularly confusing rules. Thankfully, the basic process is actually quite simple, as long as you understand what you are looking at.
The first six players in each team are what we call “automatic qualifying”. This group is chosen based on points accumulated over a two-year period starting after the previous Ryder Cup. The points are approximately related to profits, so paying attention to Ryder Cup’s ranking is not that difficult to understand. If you play well, make more money, and if you make more money, earn more Ryder Cup points. (The only major warning here: LIVE events are not included in the list of Ryder Cup points, which means some players from the rival tour are under the rankings regarding their game.)
The remaining six points of the list in each team are placed through “Captain’s choices“Which are essentially the wild card choices made by the captain of each team Ryder Cup (in 2025, those two captains are Keegan Bradley for Americans, and Luke Donald for Europeans).
In theory, choosing a captain can be someone. If Keegan Bradley thought Tiger Woods was a worthy player on the US, he could choose Woods to play in the team despite Tiger’s ranking as the 148th American race at points. If Donald thought that players six to 12 in the list of points were worthy of a team’s slots, he could also choose those six players. The only rule is that Bradley and Donald are the ones who make the decision.
How about why? Captain’s points and election system were created to help the process of setting the 12 best players on each list. The first six car qualifiers ensure that everyone has equal opportunities to make the team, and no one who deserves a place in the team is left because of aThe boys’ club.“The last selections of Captain Six Captain ensure that players who waste time from the injury, or those who are valid for the Ryder Cup list in ways that the last form does not necessarily dictate, are not left out of the list.
What do you need to know about the 2025 Ryder Captain Captain choices
The main scene of the story is the center of this year Ryder Cup: US Captain Keegan Bradley, whose tortured story at the event received a new shade in 2025 himself For the list as the first captain to play in 50 years, or choose someone else who can deserve a place in the team less. Bradley has seriously considered all sides of the matter, but it is not clear in which way he is relying with less than 24 hours left. In a sisyphean turn, his list candidacy is the most difficult to analyze.
On the European side, it is possible that 11 out of 12 of the team players from a victorious 2023 campaign in Rome could be returned. With ballots to grow, there is no security, and Donald can choose to add a strong dose of new blood to the team like Harry Hall. But for now, it is possible that the only difference in the list may be Nicolai Hojgaard for his twin brother, Rasmus. Donald will make his announcement at 9am on Monday.
