Keegan Bradley admits major regret as he issues 'I don't care' Ryder Cup stance over LIV stars
Honest Keegan Bradley admits regret at past bitterness towards success of his peers as he issued a 'I don't care' stance regarding his LIV stars such as Bryson DeCmabeau and Brooks Koepka.
The Ryder Cup captain, who is getting ready to try and win a second PGA Championship, is relishing being the leader of his team as he gears up for September's scintillating showdown against Europe.
Bradley sees the warmth within his close-knit USA stars and confessed that, having never been happy to see an opponent succeed in the earlier part of his career, he now wishes he'd seen things differently. He explained: 'Yes, I really regret early parts of my career.
'Who knows, maybe it helped me play well, but I look up to a lot of these guys in the way that they treat each other in that they are genuinely happy for their friend that wins or plays well. I never really felt that. I was always wanting to beat everybody.
'I think it's been great for me to get around those guys and feel that sort of joy that they have for their friends. As the captain now, I see a guy like Justin Thomas win and I feel like I'm in the car cheering. It's just so fun for me to have that feeling.
'I sort of feel like a big brother to a lot of these guys. I thank them for helping me see that side and I think it's a much better way to go about life on the Tour.'
Bradley has surrounded himself with the squad in build up and had a dinner at the Truist Championship last week for members of the past Ryder Cup and President Cup sides.
He explained the reasoning as he stated: 'It was amazing. It's always fun this time of year to get the guys all together under one roof and really start to celebrate a Ryder Cup year.
'We had that dinner the other week, but we're working every day every week for the guys. As a player I loved going to these meetings because it started to get real.
'Like this is coming, I really want to get on this team. Try to motivate the guys to be excited to play for our captains that we have and get excited to play at Bethpage Black.
'It's our dream to be on these teams and even getting invited to a meeting like that is special because it means you could make the team. We have we we want to make everyone feel comfortable and we're going to have an open line of communication.
'We invited Brooks and Bryson. They were in the points and they had played on the previous teams and it was great to have them there. It was exciting. This Ryder Cup and what comes with this, no-one cares about what's going on PGA Tour and LIV.
'We're trying to put the best team together and it could mean there's one LIV guy, two LIV guys, that doesn't doesn't matter. But it was really great to have them all together with the guys. It's been a while since we've been able to do that.
'One of my favourite things has been getting to know the guys better. I've known them all through the years of playing, but I've really gotten to know most of them much more and it's been really one of the highlights of my career.
'I don't know if this didn't happen, if I would have gotten to know these guys as well, so I'm just trying to get to know these guys exactly how they want to have the Ryder Cup, exactly how they like to be treated, how they like to be spoken to in the heat of the moment and really just having them feel comfortable with me and the other vice captains.
'I really enjoyed the process of really getting to know the guys a little better.'
DeChambeau and Kopeka have limited chance to win points to the team due to their LIV status and Bradley says this week's PGA Championship is vital, especially given a lesser-standard of data available from the Saudi-backed tour.
He explained: 'I think these majors kind of separate guys. You see a guy hanging there on Sunday, it's an impressive thing.
'There's a lot of points at stake here and the the movement on the points list can be a lot in these events, so you know, you see maybe a younger guy that stands up to the pressure and can feel this is as close as we're going to get to Bethpage, that you know the the pressure on Sunday is a lot in a major and you can you can see a lot there.
'Listen, these guys are playing in all four of the majors, so we'll have that and you know these guys that a lot of them are up in these leaderboards every major, so we'll see how the how the year shapes out.
'The data is a little less at LIV. We don't have quite the same stats that we have out here, but we have some and we know that winning and contending on any tour at any level is difficult.
'I don't care where you play. I played the mini tours, winning there was difficult. Winning on LIV is difficult and you can see guys, winning a LIV event is a big deal.'
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