Keegan Bradley the first U.S. playing captain since Arnold Palmer? It's a 'tall task'

HONOLULU – Keegan Bradley wants it all – to lead Team USA to victory at the 2025 Ryder Cup and to keep winning on the PGA Tour. If his next individual title could be a second major, all the better.

“I'm still on my mission to be the best player that I can be, one of the best players in the world. I haven't won a major in almost 15 years. I really want to contend in majors. That's No. 1 on my list,” he said on Wednesday ahead of the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Bradley, 38, who notched his first wins in 2011 at the Byron Nelson and PGA Championship and his most recent title at the 2024 BMW Championship in August, has won in each of the last three years on Tour.

“I'd like to make that four years in a row,” he said. “But I really want to be looked at as one of the best players in the world. Me being the Ryder Cup captain doesn't have anything to do with that. I still feel like I'm in the prime of my career, playing the best golf I've ever played, and I want to keep building on that.”

But should he emerge as a top-six player in the U.S. points standings and qualify for the team on merit, Bradley will be faced with a tall task to be the first player-captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.

“I want whatever is best for the team. If that means I’m playing, I’ll do that,” Bradley told Golfweek. “I think doing both jobs is going to be really difficult.”

Asked if any past captain had advised him to do both jobs, he smiled and said, “No. It’s a pretty big task,” he said. “When we get to the middle of the summer, we’ll have a better idea where I sit. If I’m really in the conversation then we’ll make some plans. But for now, I’m just operating as I’m the captain.”

Bradley returns to Waialae Country Club where a year ago he held the 54-lead but shot 67 and lost to Grayson Murray on the first hole of a playoff. Bradley said he took the defeat hard.

“This was the only tournament that I can think back of in my career where I definitely should have won that I didn't win,” he said. “Here, I was in control, I felt especially on the back nine, and I really felt like I should have won this tournament … I was bummed out.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: keegan-bradley-2025-us-ryder-cup-playing-captain