PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 13, 2025

Keegan Bradley

Quail Hollow Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: 2011 PGA champion and 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley is with us now at the 107th PGA Championship. Keegan, welcome to your 15th PGA Championship. You continue to wear two hats, competing as yourself, of course, and also serving as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain.

I understand you had a chance last week to gather with potential team members. Can you tell us about that, please?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, it was amazing. It's always fun this time of year to get the guys together under one roof - the caddies, the wives, the players - and really start to celebrate a Ryder Cup year. It was great to see everybody there and chat with everybody. It's just a great group of guys.

Q. Keegan, regarding past team captains we've seen before, there are captains who kind of lean a little bit more on emotion or heart with picking and strategy for the week of. Captains like Stacy Lewis have gone more analytical in recent years. How are you balancing those two things as we lead up to the Ryder Cup?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: I think we have to see how the team takes shape here in the next couple months, but we'll definitely be using analytics to help us make the picks, along with obviously the eye test of who we think is going to be suited for Bethpage.

I think, when you get down to it, they're always really tough decisions. So the more information you can get helps you with those, but we'll see how the team takes shape the next couple months.

Q. In reference to dinners like you just had, how much of that is -- the value of that is kind of based on your own experiences? Talking about you said the line two years ago of being an outsider a little bit, trying to cultivate that feeling so when September comes, it's not an outsider.

KEEGAN BRADLEY: We had that Ryder Cup dinner the other week, but we're working every day, every week for the guys for Bethpage.

I think it's important -- I know for me as a player, I loved going to these meetings because it started to get real, like this is coming; I really want to get on this team. And try to motivate the guys to be excited to play for our captains that we have and get excited to play at Bethpage Black.

As a player, I was always just so excited to go to stuff like that because it's our dream to be on these teams. Even getting invited to a meeting like that is special because it means you could make the team.

Q. What's the value in getting like a Luke Clanton in something like that?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: It's important. I think with the group of captains and vice captains we have, we want to make everyone feel comfortable. We're going to have an open line of communication.

For a lot of the guys that are going to be on this team, they know these guys really well, which is a little different than the past, I think. They feel really comfortable. I mean, any given week, they could tee it up with these guys in a PGA TOUR event.

Q. This is an eye test kind of question. This is an eye test sort of weekend. It's one of the most pressure-filled weekends of the year. What are you going to be looking for on Sunday afternoon if you've got some people that are in contention? What are you going to be looking for them to do?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: I think these majors kind of separate guys. You see a guy hang in there on Sunday, that's an impressive thing, especially around a course like this. Like I said, I'm still out there playing and trying to do my thing.

These majors, there's a lot of points at stake here, and the movement on the points list, it can be a lot in these events. You see a guy, maybe a younger guy, that stands up to the pressure and can feel this, this is as close as we're going to get to Bethpage in that the pressure on Sundays is a lot in a major, and you can see a lot there.

Q. What do the Celtics have to do to get back into this?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: A lot. That was sad last night. I hope Jayson Tatum is all right. Let's win the next game, and then we'll sort it out.

Q. Keegan, can you tell us what LIV guys you invited to the thing, the dinner last week and who showed up?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, we invited Brooks and Bryson, and they were in there on points and they played on previous teams. It was great to have them there. They were -- it was exciting to -- this Ryder Cup and what comes with this, no one cares about what's going on in this side PGA TOUR-LIV. We're trying to put the best team together.

It could mean there's one LIV guy, two LIV guys, it doesn't matter. We'll see how this year shakes out. It was really great to have them together with all the guys. It's been a while since we've been able to do that.

Q. Another thing is you talked about analytics and eye test, and unfortunately from an analytics standpoint, there's really not much analytics out of LIV. Secondly, unless you spend time watching YouTube or whatever, there's not much of an eye test. Do you have to take your approach a little differently with the LIV side of the equation?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, maybe. Listen, we've got -- these guys are playing in all four of the majors, so we'll have that. These guys, a lot of them are up in these leaderboards every major.

We'll see how the year shapes out. The data is a little less at LIV. We don't have quite the same stats that we have out here, but we have some. We know winning and contending on any tour at any level is difficult. I don't care where you play. I played the mini-tours. Winning there was difficult. Winning on the LIV is difficult.

You can see guys -- winning a LIV event is a big deal.

Q. I know you've said in past Ryder Cup years, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to play well to try to make one of those teams. Knowing you're involved as a captain but still would like to play if you play well enough, how would you compare the pressure you feel on your own game, again, knowing you're going to be involved either way?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, I don't -- it's different this year because my main job at the Ryder Cup is to be the captain. Right now I go about every day as the captain. I don't even think about me as a player at this point.

If I get to the end of the year and I'm in that conversation, I'll change that. For now I have to operate every day as if I'm the captain and make decisions as the captain. I'm not thinking of myself as a player on the team at the moment.

Q. What are the types of roles that a captain is doing? Like what are you doing around this time? Obviously you're monitoring what players are doing, but that's probably not the main focus. What are the types of day-to-day things you're working on?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Really one of my favorite things over the last year and a half has been getting to know the guys better. I've known them all through the years of playing, but I've really gotten to know most of them much more.

It's been really one of the highlights of my career. I don't know, if this didn't happen, that I would have gotten to know these guys as well. I'm just trying to get to know these guys exactly how they want to have the Ryder Cup, exactly how they like to be treated, how they like to be spoken to in the heat of the moment, and really just having them feel comfortable with me and the other vice captains, which isn't that difficult considering we all know each other. I've really enjoyed the process of really getting to know the guys a little better.

Q. Aside from playing in the Ryder Cup, just your own game -- obviously this is an individual game, you want to do as well as you can. Has it impacted that at all? Have you found that you've had to maybe put some things aside for the sake of this, and how are you dealing with that?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: I think the hardest thing for me has not been thinking of the Ryder Cup when I'm practicing or my day-to-day when I'm home with my family. It's constantly on my mind of how we're going to go about doing this, the best way to go about doing this, how to run a proper meeting last week. I think that's been the biggest obstacle is shutting that part of my brain off, which is interesting because, when I get inside the ropes in a tournament, it's really the only time I can do that.

Sometimes for us golfers, being inside the ropes is actually a peaceful place. I've had that at times this year, but there's definitely been times where I've been practicing, and a thought will come into my head and I've got to write it down and then I'm thinking about it, and that's a distraction. But it hasn't affected my preparation or anything like that.

Q. Are you good with where your game is right now? How do you feel about things?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: I feel great. I haven't putted nearly the way I have been over the last couple of years. I really felt like I took a big step forward last week, but I'm hitting the ball as good as I've hit it, it's just the putting hasn't quite been there.

I know, if I just have a week that that clicks in, I can be right up there.

Q. Just last thing, you just a minute ago said you've enjoyed the last year and a half getting to know guys, whatever. Does that mean you knew you were the captain a year and a half ago?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Let's see, when was it?

Q. Maybe it seems --

KEEGAN BRADLEY: It wouldn't have been a year and a half. It would have been not even quite a year.

Q. Maybe it seems like a year and a half?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Like a decade. No, I guess it's been less than a year, but yeah.

Q. I think it was Presidents Cup you said just kind of -- you had previous regrets on how maybe you viewed other guys out here kind of as your competition always, and you kind of relished that a lot of the younger guys are friends in this part of this generation. Now, having this kind of renaissance where you were able to play the Presidents Cup, where you're doing this, are you relishing having a different viewpoint on how you view your fellow competitors?

KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yes. I really regret early parts of my career -- who knows, maybe it helped me play well. I wouldn't know if I did it differently. But I look up to a lot of these guys in the way that they treat each other, in that they are genuinely happy for their friend that wins or plays well. I never really felt that. I was always like wanting to beat everybody.

I think it's been great for me to get around those guys and feel that sort of joy that they have for their friends. As the captain now, I see a guy like Justin Thomas win, and I feel like I'm in the car cheering, like it's just so fun for me to have that feeling. I sort of feel like a big brother to a lot of these guys.

I thank them for helping me see that side. I think it's a much better way to go about life on the Tour.