Keegan Bradley will not be the first US Ryder Cup playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963, choosing instead to pick six other players to round out the American dozen that will play next month at Bethpage State Park's Black Course on Long Island, New York.
Bradley selected Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Sam Burns with those final picks, creating several complementary pairings based on friendships and inviting new players who haven't yet played on the US Ryder Cup team.
As for Bradley not picking himself, he was asked repeatedly about the process and his decision-making. Ultimately, he said he signed up to be a full-fledged captain and was going to do that job, even knowing he was fully deserving of a spot.
"It broke my heart not to play. It really did," he said Wednesday at PGA Frisco in Texas, home of the PGA of America. "You work forever to make these teams, but ultimately I was chosen to do a job. I was chosen to be the captain of this team. My ultimate goal to start this thing was to be the best captain that I could be."
Thomas will be the most-tenured American player on the team, as he'll be making his fourth US Ryder Cup team. Thomas won at Harbour Town in a Signature PGA Tour event at the RBC Heritage. He also scored three runner-up finishes on the season.
Burns, who is close friends with Scottie Scheffler, will make a second-consecutive American team after debuting in Italy. Burns leads the PGA Tour in strokes-gained putting and had six top-10 finishes this season, including in the final two tournaments of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Collin Morikawa will play on his third Ryder Cup team, and he was second on the PGA Tour in strokes-gained tee-to-green. He didn't win an event this season, but his consistency, particularly in the first half of the season, gave him the nod.
Cam Young is one of four Ryder Cup rookies in 2025, including Griffin, JJ Spaun and Russell Henley. Young closed the season well, earning his first PGA Tour title at the Wyndham Championship and finishing in the top 12 in his final four starts of the season. Young is a native New Yorker.
Griffin has been one of the best American players in 2025, winning twice, including at the team-based Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Andrew Novak and in the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas. He posted 10 top-10 finishes in 2025 on the PGA Tour, tied for second most behind Scottie Scheffler, who leads the US team.
Scheffler, Spaun, Henley, Xander Schauffele, Harris English and Bryson DeChambeau were the six automatic qualifiers as a result of the points list, with qualifying ending at the BMW Championship.
Bradley is confident in his dozen players' ability to collectively win back the Ryder Cup on American soil, saying he would have picked himself to play if he didn't think there was enough talent to get the job done.
"If we got to this point and I felt like the team was better with me on it, I was going to do that. I was going to do whatever I thought was best for this team," he said. "I know 100 percent for certain that this is the right choice, and these six guys, again, played so incredibly coming down the stretch here and made my decision a lot easier."
