The Break: Did Keegan make the right choice?

Keegan snubs Bradley

Keegan Bradley ultimately chose not to pick himself to be the first US Ryder Cup playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963, announcing his six captain’s picks on Wednesday at PGA Frisco in Texas. Instead, he went with Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Ben Griffin, Cam Young, Collin Morikawa and Sam Burns.

Four of those picks were probably never in question. JT won this year and loves the Ryder Cup. Patrick Cantlay is Good Buddies with Xander Schauffele, is comfortable being a lightning rod for the Europeans and has a tremendous match-play record. Sam Burns is Scottie Scheffler’s Good Buddy, yes, but he was great throughout the season. Collin Morikawa is a putting liability, and he’s not in great form, but he offers a pretty high performance floor that can be helpful in fourball pairings.

Ben Griffin was one of the best Americans this year, but the outside interpretation of comments Bradley made to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis was that Griffin would be denied an opportunity in favor of someone else in the Boys Club. Bradley made the right choice in giving him the chance; Griffin earned it, and his deskjob-to-world-beater story will resonate.

Cam Young is a native New Yorker — from those mean streets! — and finished the season really strong. He finally won his first PGA Tour title in Greensboro in a rout, and he was great in the playoffs.

But Bradley had every right to pick himself. He’s not just one of the top 12 American players; he’s one of the top 11 players in the world, per the Official World Golf Ranking. He could have done the job, and he would have had plenty of help for the administrative parts of the job.

However, Bradley ultimately came around to the view that, above all, he signed up to be the captain of this team, fully knowing that he could find himself in this vice created in part by a succession plan by the PGA of America that fell apart when Tiger Woods didn’t want the job this time and Phil Mickelson went to LIV in 2022. This was probably Bradley’s last-best chance to make a Ryder Cup team, and he was willing to give that up in the name of duty to the 12 guys he’ll lead.

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That will turn out to be a handy motivating tactic for Bradley. That’s not to say that Bradley denied himself in some Tony Robbins act. However, the American team now knows they had better win for Bradley, who was screwed over for a spot in 2023 by Zach Johnson and screwed up for a spot in 2025 by Keegan Bradley (read: the PGA of America).

To a man, the American players have been effusive with praise for Bradley’s leadership in the months leading to this moment. The entire experiences appears to have changed Bradley, who said Wednesday that it forced him to become less of a PGA Tour loner and find a way to integrate into different circles of Tour life.

If he proves successful at Bethpage Black in a month’s time, Bradley will be hailed as a captain who broke the mold, navigated a gut-wrenching process and came out a hero on the other side. For his sake, I hope that happens.

The Links

A quick note: I’ll start sending The Links once weekly beginning next week and through the fall, except during the Ryder Cup. I’ll go back to twice weekly come 2026.

If you’d be so kind as to follow Golf News Net on Instagram and Facebook, I’d really appeciate it! I post all kinds of great clips and information there that I don’t include in the newsletters.

That said, the LPGA is in the Boston area this week for the FM Championship, and the DP World Tour is in Switzerland for the Omega European Masters. I had a stopover in Switzerland last year when we were coming back from a family trip to London, and it made me want all the more to someday go to that DP World Tour event.

A more open Masters

Augusta National is changing its invitation criteria for 2026 and beyond, teaming up with the R&A to create dual exemptions in the Masters and the Open Championship. The new criteria will give one-year exemptions to winners of six specific national opens: the Genesis Scottish Open, Open de España, Japan Open, Australian Open, Investec South African Open and the Hong Kong Open.

It’s a great way to ensure a more global representation in two majors, and the Masters brand gets more of a global rub as a major willing to look outside the United States and the PGA Tour to complete its field.

To compensate for the six new invitations, Augusta National will no longer give Masters invites to winners of FedEx Cup Fall events on the PGA Tour. That makes a lot of sense.

After the PGA Tour last year limited the FedEx Cup playoffs to the top 70 players in the standings and this year decreased the number of fully exempt players to 100, the FedEx Cup Fall has changed entirely. The fall is no longer an opportunity for a head start on the coming season as much as it is a muli-tournament Q-School for 30 cards. With many top players completely skipping the fall, the events feature super-higher-end opposite-field events.

What I would like to see is the winner of the Korn Ferry Tour points list getting an immediate crack at the PGA Tour in the fall as a reward for a great season. It’s going to be tough enough for the 20 graduates to get playing time in the new PGA Tour, so why not offer a bigger carrot to the best performer?