NORTH BERWICK – Justin Thomas was just starting his rookie season on the PGA Tour when the Americans formed the infamous “Ryder Cup Task Force” geared toward building continuity with hopes of restoring U.S. dominance in the matches.
Ten years later, Thomas was part of the Ryder Cup Committee that selected Keegan Bradley as the next captain.
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It was a surprising choice because Bradley played in only two Ryder Cups and had no experience as an assistant. That was part of the template that came out of the task force. Future captains would first be groomed as assistants. Captains would stay on as an assistant at the following Ryder Cup. Everyone would be on the same page.
It's what led Phil Mickelson to declare in early 2015 after the task force came up with the plan, “I'm excited about where we are now, and I'm excited about where we are headed — not just into 2016, but really for the next 10 or 20 years.”
Is that the end of the task force plan?
“Yes and no,” Thomas said at the Scottish Open. "My thing is I want us to pick the best captain. I don't want it to feel like it needs to fit a certain résumé; it doesn't need to fit this right mold. It's like, ‘Look, who’s our best captain right now?'
“It doesn't matter what they've done,” he said. “Are the guys going to be excited to play for him? Is he going to mesh with everybody? That's all that matters. That's something that potentially is the hope going forward. Next year is the only one that matters right now."
Davis Love III was the first captain that came out of the task force for the 2016 matches at Hazeltine, a U.S. victory against a European team that had six rookies, five of whom never played in another Ryder Cup.
His assistants included Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods. Furyk was the next captain for 2018 in France. His assistants included Stricker, Woods and Zach Johnson. Then it was Stricker's turn in Wisconsin. Furyk was an assistant, along with Love (again) and Johnson. And then Johnson got the job for Marco Simone outside Rome.
And on it went, the home side winning each time.
In some respects, Bradley broke the mold. He hasn't been involved in a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup since 2014, except for being part of the Netflix docuseries that filmed him getting the awkward call from Johnson that he would not be a captain's pick.
Rory McIlroy is a keen observer of all things Ryder Cup and was surprised by Bradley choice, like so many others.
“I think Keegan was probably in disbelief, at some point, too,” McIlroy said with a smile. “But certainly an interesting pick.”
When asked whether he felt it was it was a departure from what the Ryder Cup task force set out to do in 2014, McIlroy couldn't say except to note that players still had a voice. Thomas, Johnson and Jordan Spieth are on the committee.
“It seems quite reactionary in terms of what happened in Rome,” McIlroy said, referring to the Americans losing a seventh consecutive road match.
Most surprising about the selection was that Bradley says he was never interviewed. The first phone call was to offer him the job. Thomas said he played a practice round with Bradley before that phone call and found it “difficult to act normal.”
Other names kicked around if Woods wasn't interested included Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar. Both had been assistants. That was template.
“I don't think anyone is ever an obvious choice, especially going outside the box,” Thomas said. "It was very apparent that it wasn't an obvious choice in the beginning. I think after everybody got together and talked about it, all of the light bulbs flicked off for all of us at the right time.
“Once that was the thought, there was no other way.”
Bradley will be 39 next year when the 2025 matches take place at Bethpage Black, making him the youngest captain since Arnold Palmer was 34 and a playing captain in 1963 at East Lake. He was the last playing captain in the Ryder Cup.
Bradley also is No. 19 in the world and said flatly he wants to play on the next team if he were to qualify.
That hasn't been a serious consideration for the Ryder Cup since Tom Kite was captain in 1997, the year he was runner-up (by 12 shots) to Woods at the Masters. Kite finished 35th on the PGA Tour money list that year.
Woods was a playing captain at the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in 2019. He went 3-0, though the Presidents Cup is not in the same league as the Ryder Cup in attention, promotion or the level of external pressure.
Any American team in golf is tough to make these days. Bradley still is a long way off regardless of his world ranking. Thomas thinks it could happen because the U.S. hired former caddie John Wood as team manager to help with the details.
McIlroy said his name was kicked around for the 2027 matches in Adare Manor in Ireland, especially if Woods is the U.S. captain. Imagine how much hype a Woods-McIlroy captaincy would create.
Even as a fantasy idea, however, McIlroy wasn't buying.
“It's been mentioned and I've said, ‘No way.’ There's no way,” he said. “If you want to be the best captain you can be, you can't play. And if you want to be the best player you can be, you can't captain. It's one or the other, especially with how big the Ryder Cup has become.”
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