“It’s always about hindsight" - Analyst weighs in on Keegan Bradley as US Ryder Cup captain

The highly anticipated 2025 Ryder Cup kicks off on September 25 and Keegan Bradley is set to captain Team US. Ahead of the tournament, golf analyst Rex Hoggard discussed Bradley as captain, saying that there’s no way to know if he’s a good choice yet.

During an episode of the Golf Channel podcast with Rex and Lav, the two analysts answered several questions from fans who wanted their opinions on certain topics. One fan asked if the PGA of America picked made the right move to appoint the eight-time PGA Tour winner as Ryder Cup captain, and Hoggard said,

“I don't know. That's the beauty of captains at Ryder Cups and Presidents Cup — it's always about hindsight, and we're the ones that benefit from that because we're the ones that get to decide after the fact if they were good captains or not.” [49:56]

To further his point, the golf analyst used five-time PGA Tour winner Tom Lehman as an example. Hoggard went back in time, saying that when Lehman captained the US Ryder Cup team in 2006, he was confident they were headed for victory. However, the US team suffered a terrible loss, at 18½ to 9½, and the players also contributed to the poor performance as they were not Ryder Cup material.

Hoggard thinks that this year, the PGA of America tried to do something different by picking Keegan Bradeley. He added,

“I think the PGA of America wanted to go in a new direction, and I think what they tried to use is the passion of Keegan Bradley, his connection to the Northeast, being a Bethpage Black, all of those things they were trying to capitalize on.” [50:25]

Rex Hoggard concluded by saying that while he doesn’t know if Bradley is a good captain, he knows that the European team captain Luke Donald is good. He also pointed out that things might get complicated should Bradley decide to become a playing captain.

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Keegan Bradley speaks on the possibility of becoming a playing Ryder Cup captain - “We’ll see”

Keegan Bradley claimed his eight PGA Tour title and first win of the season at the 2025 Travelers Championship. The victory opened up the possibility of him becoming a player on the US Ryder Cup team even after already being named captain.

After his dominating performance at TPC River Highlands, Bradley admitted that while he isn’t sure of what to do yet, he will prioritize what’s best for the team. He said (via ASAP Sports):

“But we'll see. I'm going to do whatever I think is best for the team. Whether that's me on the team -- this certainly changes a lot of things. I was never going to play on the team unless I had won a tournament and so that's changed, but we'll see.”

Keegan Bradley also said that in previous years, he really wanted to be a player but this year, he wanted to be a captain. However, now that the development has opened the door to being a player, he isn’t altogether closed off to the idea of it.