Rory McIlroy Sounds Ridiculous Sharing Why Keegan Bradley Being Ryder Cup Playing Captain Would Be Too Tough

With the 2025 Ryder Cup less than 50 days away, you're either firmly in the camp that U.S. captain Keegan Bradley is deserving of a spot on the team and should serve as a playing captain, or he shouldn't, because serving both roles is simply too much to handle.

Team Europe's Rory McIlroy has made it clear that he believes that a Ryder Cup captain has too many responsibilities to be able to succeed in both roles.

Keegan Bradley could have his hands too full at the Ryder Cup as a playing captain. (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Bradley, the 12 Americans who will make up this year's team, and anyone else involved with the U.S. squad should not care about anything McIlroy has to say about how they may or may not operate at the Ryder Cup. With that obvious statement out of the way, this brings us to McIlroy's thought process behind the situation.

In complete defense of McIlroy, he was simply asked to elaborate on why he thinks it would be so difficult for a Ryder Cup captain to also play in the event during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of this week's BMW Championship. 

McIlroy obliged to the question and listed off what sounded more like built-in excuses than actual difficulties.

"I just think the commitments that a captain has the week of -- you think about the extra media that a captain has to do, you think about the extra meetings that the captains have to do with the vice captains, with the PGA of America, in Keegan's case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony -- just there's a lot of things that people don't see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big," McIlroy said.

Professional golfers mentioning ‘extra media’ as if it's some sort of catastrophic challenge and distraction is a tradition unlike any other, but mentioning the challenge of writing a speech is certainly a new one.

Rory McIlroy doesn't see Keegan Bradley being a Ryder Cup playing captain as a safe route. (Credit: Michael Madrid-Imagn Images)

With the Ryder Cup taking place at Bethpage Black in New York and Bradley being a Northeast guy, he could legitimately say anything during the opening ceremony and have every American in attendance ready to have ‘USA’ tattooed across their forehead. I don't think the guy is too worked up about delivering a speech.

PGA Tour Players Plea For Keegan Bradley To Pick Himself, Be Playing Captain For Ryder Cup

As for the onslaught of meetings and extra hands Bradley will have to shake in the lead-up to the event, those are legitimate points from McIlroy and something the U.S. Captain is more than aware of. Whether or not they'll be distractions, well, there is only one way to find out.

It's not difficult to spin the prospect of having those potential distractions actually turning into positives. Keeping the off-course responsibilities the off-course responsibilities and then stepping inside the ropes to play a match while representing your country may be a recipe for success for Bradley and the U.S. team. Again, there is only one way to find out.

Interestingly enough, McIlroy did state that he thinks Bradley is "one of the best 12 American players right now."

We'll find out later this month when Bradley makes his captain's picks if he thinks of himself in the same light as McIlroy does.