Just hours away from Keegan Bradley’s announcement of his U.S. Ryder Cup captain’s picks, former captain and golf legend Tom Watson has a big warning for the 2025 American leader.
In an interview with The Times, Watson, a two-time U.S. Ryder Cup captain, strongly advised Bradley against choosing himself as a captain’s pick Wednesday, saying, “You can’t do it.”
Watson’s controversial U.S. Ryder Cup captain history
Watson is not just one of the greatest American golfers ever — he’s one of history’s greatest golfers. Full stop.
Watson won eight major championships, including five Open Championship wins that he nearly made six as a 59-year-old at the 2009 Open.
But he also has a wealth of experience playing on and captaining U.S. Ryder Cup teams. In 1993, at 44 years old, Watson captained the U.S. team to a 15-13 victory over the Europeans at the Belfry in England.
His 1993 captaincy wasn’t a surprise, but his second stint at the helm was a real shocker. Watson was tabbed to return as U.S. captain for the 2014 Ryder Cup at 65 years old, becoming the oldest captain in history.
But the 2014 event turned into a disaster. Europe handily defeated the American team 16.5-11.5. Watson was heavily criticized for his mistakes as captain that year, including by team member Phil Mickelson during the post-tournament press conference.
It was that captain controversy that inspired the U.S. side to overhaul their system for choosing Ryder Cup captains.
What Tom Watson thinks about Bradley’s Ryder Cup decision
In another twist, the 2014 event was one of only two Ryder Cups that Bradley competed in as a player, going 1-2-0.
And based on Watson’s comments this week to The Times, he thinks that 2012 and 2014 should remain the only Ryder Cups that Bradley has played in.
In the interview, Watson argued that being a playing captain was essentially impossible, using his experience at the 1993 Ryder Cup as an example.
“I could not have been a player-captain and the reason very simply is the scheduling,” Watson told The Times, “because the captain has to have his pairings in for the afternoon matches by 11 a.m.”
He continued: “The last two morning matches are going on for sure and you want to have the latitude to say this player is not playing well. For instance, in 1993, Paul Azinger got blown out in his first match, and I thought, ‘I’m going to sit Paul and let him recoup’. I had to make that decision, and if I was playing in a match, what a huge distraction that would have been.”
If his point wasn’t clear enough, Watson tied it up at the end, stating, “You can’t do it. You can’t be both [captain and player].”
Watson’s is just the latest warning Bradley has received about his monumental decision over the past year. It was clear to everyone from the moment Bradley was announced as 2025 captain that this dilemma could arise.
And Bradley is well aware of the controversy that will break out no matter which path he chooses, as he explained at last week’s Tour Championship.
“You worry that people maybe on my side will say, if you don’t win, that was a mistake, that was self-indulgent,” Bradley said at East Lake. “I’m very well aware of that. No matter what decision I make, I’m going to be defined by this decision. If we win, it doesn’t matter what decision I make. But every captain has to make really tough decisions. This is just a really unique decision. I think it’s just because of my age. If Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson or Jim Furyk was appointed captain at my age, they would’ve had to do this. So, it’s just a luck of the draw, I guess. I don’t know.”
