In a surprise move, six-time PGA Tour winner Keegan Bradley will captain the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black in September 2025. Tiger Woods reportedly turned down the offer.
The PGA of America officially announced Bradley as captain at a press conference held Tuesday afternoon in New York City.
Tiger was the PGA's first choice. The next candidates were initially presumed to be fellow PGA Tour veterans Stewart Cink, Fred Couples, and David Love III, per Sports Illustrated. However, Bradley's name emerged as a late-breaking option, according to reports.
“I am incredibly honored to accept this opportunity to captain the United States team at the 2025 Ryder Cup,” Bradley said in an official statement. “I would like to thank the PGA of America Ryder Cup Committee for their trust in me as we embark on this journey to Bethpage Black.
“My passion and appreciation for golf’s greatest team event have never been stronger. The Ryder Cup is unlike any other competition in our sport, and this edition will undoubtedly be particularly special given the rich history and enthusiastic spectators at this iconic course. I look forward to beginning preparations for 2025.”
Former World No. 1 Luke Donald is returning to captain the European side after steering them to a dominant 5 1/2-point triumph at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Rome last September.
Tiger had expressed interest in the captaincy, and recently departed PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh had mentioned the 48-year-old as an ideal option to helm the squad at Bethpage.
“We're still working on what that might look like, also whether or not I have the time to do it,” Tiger said at the PGA Championship in May. “I'm dedicating so much time to what we're doing with the PGA Tour, I don't want to not fulfill the role of the captaincy if I can't do it.”
Tiger is vice president of PGA Tour Enterprises — a for-profit branch tasked with growing the game — and serves on the policy board of the PGA Tour and a transaction subcommittee delegated to negotiations with LIV Golf's backer, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia.
“What that all entails and representing Team USA and the commitments to the PGA of America, the players, and the fans and as I said, all of Team USA. I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves,” Tiger continued.
Bradley has a 4-2 career Ryder Cup record and has never hid his passion for the event.
Despite kicking off an impressive summer of golf with a win at the 2023 Travelers Championship, Bradley was curiously passed over for (the struggling) Justin Thomas and Rickie Flower by captain Zach Johnson for Rome — a development that was gut-wrenchingly captured on Netflix's Full Swing.
“The thing is, those guys are close. They’re not just PGA Tour-close, they’re close friends,” Bradley said about Johnson's picks. “If you take golf out of the equation, they’re legit close friends. You have your close friends as a golfer and then you have your close PGA Tour friends, and a lot of the time your close friends aren’t on the tour.”
“I love these guys, and one of the main reasons I wanted to make this team is I wanted to be around these guys, the energy that they have,” Bradley added. “I see the way JT prepares and practices, and if I was a captain, I would want him in my locker room.”
Bradley finished 11th in the Ryder Cup standings — ahead of Thomas and Fowler.
“I really was rooting for those guys,” Bradley told me about the snub. “That was real. My wife and I — we both wanted them to win and do well. But, it was important, someday, for my kids to also realize, like, sometimes if you don't get your way or what you want, you still have to do the right thing. And that's what we wanted to do.”
Now, Bradley gets to make the final picks. At 38, he'll be the youngest U.S. Ryder Cup captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.
The 2025 Ryder Cup begins Sept. 26, 2025 at Bethpage Black in New York. The U.S. have won three of the last four Ryder Cups on home soil.
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