By Frank Pingue
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) -Keegan Bradley will be doing double duty at this week’s PGA Championship where he will not only be seeking a second major title but also scouting potential members of the U.S. team he will captain at this year’s Ryder Cup.
Bradley, who hosted a dinner with prospective Ryder Cup members last week ahead of the September event at Bethpage Black, said the PGA Championship will help him determine the six captain’s picks he uses to round out his 12-player team.
“You see a guy hang in there on Sunday, that’s an impressive thing, especially around a course like this. Like I said, I’m still out there playing and trying to do my thing,” Bradley told reporters on Tuesday at Quail Hollow Club.
“These majors, there’s a lot of (Ryder Cup) points at stake here, and the movement on the points list, it can be a lot in these events.
“You see a guy, maybe a younger guy, that stands up to the pressure and can feel this, this is as close as we’re going to get to Bethpage in that the pressure on Sundays is a lot in a major, and you can see a lot there.”
Bradley, a first-time Ryder Cup captain, said LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka were among those at last week’s dinner and that he would have no issue including members of the Saudi-backed circuit on his squad.
“We’re trying to put the best team together,” said 2011 PGA Championship winner Bradley. “It could mean there’s one LIV guy, two LIV guys, it doesn’t matter. We’ll see how this year shakes out. It was really great to have them together with all the guys. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do that.”
While it is not typical for captains to play in the Ryder Cup, it has been done in previous editions of the event and Bradley has not ruled out that possibility but said he currently goes about each day as the captain.
“I don’t even think about me as a player at this point,” said Bradley. “If I get to the end of the year and I’m in that conversation, I’ll change that.
“For now I have to operate every day as if I’m the captain and make decisions as the captain. I’m not thinking of myself as a player on the team at the moment.”
This year’s Ryder Cup is scheduled for September 26-28 at Bethpage Black in New York where the Americans will try to reclaim the trophy from Europe.
(Reporting by Frank PingueEditing by Toby Davis)
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