Stunning Ryder Cup rule change will allow Keegan Bradley to be first player-captain in 62 years
Team Europe captain Luke Donald agreed to amend the 'captains' agreement' to allow one of Bradley's assistant captains to act as a de facto captain at Bethpage Black in September if the American golfer was playing during a session, according to a report by The Telegraph.
Traditionally, only the team captain is permitted to give advice to players during the Ryder Cup — ranging from what club to use to where to try to place a shot in the fairway — but the rule change would allow for the designated assistant to step in.
3 Keegan Bradley during the opening round of the British Open on July 17, 2025.
REUTERS
'Keegan can only change the overarching contract with Luke and Ryder Cup Europe's approval,' a source told the outlet. 'The contract between the teams includes things like how many vice-captains a team can have, etc. That is used year on year and captains rarely change that. But Keegan went to Luke with this clause and Luke generously agreed. We don't want any bad blood between the camps.'
According to the report, Jim Furyk is suggested to be the one who would move into the captain role while Bradley was playing.
Furyk had been the captain of the American Ryder Cup team in 2018 when they lost to the Europeans in Paris.
3 Arnold Palmer at the 1963 Ryder Cup.
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Bradley is currently in 10th in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings with four weeks until the top six golfers earn an automatic spot on the team and then the team captain gets six selections to make.
The U.S. squad is hoping that home-course advantage will help them and extend a streak that began back in 2014, when the host team has been victorious in the past five Ryder Cups.
The last American win came in 2021 when they defeated the Europeans at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
The Ryder Cup will be back on American soil this year when it arrives at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, from Sept. 26-28.
3 Team Europe captain Luke Donald.
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Bradley has already said that he would select himself if he doesn't receive an automatic bid 'if it helps the team.'
The U.S. captain also confirmed to Sports Illustrated on Sunday that LIV Golf star and two-time U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau would be on the Ryder Cup squad.
'Bryson is going to be a very important piece to us winning the Ryder Cup,' Bradley told SI in a text. 'He brings so much. He brings energy, passion but most importantly, he's one of the best players on the planet.'
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New York Times
42 minutes ago
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With major championship season now in the rearview mirror, all road signs now directly point to the last week in September and the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York. That also means the opportunities to make a case for yourself are dwindling, though history suggests someone will get very hot in August and force themselves into the Ryder Cup discussion in a way no one saw coming. That type of 11th-hour push is not always successful, though, with many captains instead taking a longer view and trusting the bigger body of work. Advertisement That's why our latest Ryder Cup roster projections will feel much more set in stone than other iterations over the last three months have. For Brody Miller, who took on the role of U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, and Hugh Kellenberger, acting as Team Europe boss Luke Donald, the job is now about poring over the final one or two spots and filling in any gaps the team may have. The broader picture of the U.S. Ryder Cup team appears dramatically more stable than it did just three months ago, when projections were reaching for anyone in even partially good form or any big name with cup experience. Suddenly, the problems for Bradley are about leaving off players you'd love to have in their current form, or Bradley himself playing so well that it's less about whether he deserves to be on the team than it is about whether he should stay in the captaincy role. He'll have to decide if he's comfortable leaving off all-time cup greats versus brushing off golfers currently winning tournaments and competing for majors. Really, really deserving golfers will be left off this team, no matter what Bradley decides. But with a month until teams get finalized, let's predict what Bradley will do. Scottie Scheffler: Moving on. Xander Schauffele: His past two months have consistently had him living in the top 10 and 20 of leaderboards again as he's gaining two strokes on the field. He'll be just fine. J.J. Spaun: This is not purely somebody on a team because he won the U.S. Open. He's been runner-up at the Players and the Cognizant this year. He's No. 20 in the world on DataGolf, playing solid golf all year. Even if he might ultimately only be the 12th-best player on the U.S. team, you're very happy to have him. Russell Henley: I felt confident Henley would be on this team 10 months ago, as he thrived at the Presidents Cup and positioned himself as the perfect Scheffler pairing. Now, it's so much more. Henley won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has finished top 10 at four of his last six majors. He can be both a good four-ball partner, as the steady rock finding fairways while his partner gets aggressive, and he's a great alternate shot teammate who is world-class with his irons and won't ever put his partner in bad position off the tee. Plus, he's a fantastic putter. It's no longer just a nice story. He's simply one of the best players in the world. Advertisement Bryson DeChambeau: No conversation needed. A top-four player in the world and the longest hitter by far. Bethpage go boom. Harris English: When English won at Torrey Pines, he still wasn't anywhere near this list. Nor was he after a T12 Augusta. Or even really when he finished runner-up at the PGA Championship. Credit where it's due. English is fully back. Now at 35, three years removed from back surgery that stunted his career, the 2021 Ryder Cup winning player is simply killing it. Two major runner-ups and three top 20s. And the U.S. will take all the good putting it can get. Even if he gets surpassed for automatic qualifying, he'll be on the team. Justin Thomas: Hey, maybe his one year left off a cup team served its purpose! Despite an extremely disappointing season at majors, Thomas is back to being the No. 8 player on DataGolf, the fifth-highest ranking on the team. All that with the memories of his 7-4-2 Ryder Cup record lingering. There's no doubt this time. Collin Morikawa: You are more than welcome to worry about his play the last three months. It's been a steep dropoff. But Morikawa is still one of the five best iron players on Earth and a guy with four Ryder Cup match wins and a 4-1 record last year at the Presidents Cup. Don't be silly. Keegan Bradley: This is not the big captaincy debate. You can read that here. For now, I'm just projecting what I think will happen, and this is no longer a situation where Bradley is on the bubble for the final spot. I'd argue he's been the sixth- or seventh-best U.S. player in 2025. He won with incredible clutch play at the Travelers in June. He hasn't finished worse than 41st at any tournament since April. And you cannot deny the passion he brings and the way crowds respond to him. The only reason to leave Bradley off is purely because you believe his captaincy is that important. If that's how you feel, it is completely understandable. But if you are picking the 12 best, it's not even a debate. Advertisement Ben Griffin: The missed cut at the Open is a disappointment, and if he has a terrible August, this can be revisited. But Griffin's play has not merely been a nice heater over the summer (although what a heater it was). He's been in contention in tournaments every single month of the season, going back to January. And again, sometimes the vibe test adds something. Griffin at Bethpage? Immaculate vibes. Patrick Cantlay: What are we doing here? Suddenly, there's a strong conversation that Cantlay shouldn't be a lock. People, he's a lock. After decades of hearing Americans bemoan the Europeans having all these form-agnostic killers like Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood who win no matter what, now the U.S. has the best cup player of the 2020s and is nitpicking him? My goodness. Also, he's not even having a bad year! A poor major run, absolutely. But if we're going off overall statistical golf, he's been the ninth-best American. He's played in 10 signature events this year and been top 20 in eight of them! If anything, last year was the real down year for Cantlay, and he still was the absolute star of the Presidents Cup. Stop this madness. Sam Burns: Woof, this was hard. He's played overall better golf this year than Jordan Spieth, Maverick McNealy, Andrew Novak or Chris Gotterup. From the RBC Heritage through the Travelers, he essentially earned two strokes on the field every week he went out. He's been here before, and he'll be perhaps the best putter in the entire competition. I've said in every projection this year that if Spieth plays perfectly solid golf — which he has — then you have to have him on the team. But at the end of the day, too many golfers like Spaun, English and Griffin went out and earned spots. Final thoughts • Chris Gotterup making the team would be awesome, and his absurd length off the tee makes him a perfect fit. It's very encouraging to see the 25-year-old bomber do so well on the biggest stages, like his third-place finish this week at the Open. But it's just a little too in-the-moment for me. If he tears it up this August? Absolutely. He should be considered. I just don't want to make a rash decision. • Deep down, the best thing that could happen is Maverick McNealy or Spieth winning a tournament in the next month. McNealy has played such impressive golf all season long. He is more than deserving of playing in a Ryder Cup. He just hasn't been better than the 12 golfers picked. But I'd love nothing more than for McNealy to win in Memphis or the BMW and grab a spot. The same goes for Spieth. Advertisement • Don't rule out Andrew Novak. Captain Bradley went out of his way recently on the 5 Clubs podcast to toss Novak's name in, saying, 'Guys like Andrew Novak have shown throughout the year what a tough competitor he is. I love his mindset and his attitude.' It wouldn't be a bad pick at all. The only thing holding me back is him slowing down a bunch since his April-May heater. When Europe decided to run it back for 2025, enlisting Luke Donald again as captain and watching as he reassembled his vice-captain team, it all felt very intentional. To be the first road team to win a Ryder Cup since 2012, keep as much as you can with what worked and build off of that. It's a dramatic contract from the U.S. squad, facing their latest existential crisis about leadership and passion. So if you're going to bring back Donald and four of his vice-captains, including analytics wizard Dodo Molinari, why not also bring back the players? So that's what I'm doing here — between the six automatic qualifiers and my captain's picks, 11 of the 12 European teammates in 2023 are returning. All 11 brought home at least one full point in Rome, the result of their talent but also of a cohesive approach where veteran Justin Rose was willing to be paired with nervous rookie Robert MacIntyre in fourball and sit the foursomes sessions. MacIntyre's career has taken off since then, and he currently sits second in the European points rankings. Rory McIlroy, of course, is on top, and already automatically qualified, though there's little doubt he waited until that news to book his tickets to New York. Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Shane Lowry are Nos. 3-5, and will again be foundational elements of the lineup. 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