Harrington on Keegan Bradley: “I do not in any shape or form think a captain can be a player”
Padraig Harrington does not believe Keegan Bradley can play in the Ryder Cup and captain the US to victory over Europe at Bethpage Black.
The US skipper broke Tommy Fleetwood’s heart on Sunday when he birdied the final hole to win the Travelers Championship and move up to ninth in the battle for six automatic places on the side to face Luke Donald’s Europe in September.
But Harrington is convinced the American can’t be successful as the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963 given the demands on the captain and the players in a modern Ryder Cup.
“Keegan is a player the Europeans don’t want to play against,“ the Dubliner told SiriusXM PGA Tour.
“He is not an easy person to compete against. Everything about him, he's a really tough competitor, you know, even his twitching and mannerisms, that's not easy to play against.
“Like the shot he hit there (into the 18th on Sunday), he's very ballsy at the end of the day, he hits the shots.
“So there are a lot of players that you could tee it up against, and you wouldn't choose Keegan as one of them.
“He's just a good match player. Gritty. Tough. He's going to get it done, even if he's not feeling his best. He's going to do it.
“So you want them on your team. Obviously, the complication now for the US is that he's the captain, and should he step down from the captaincy and play?
“He's definitely in the 12 best players. There's no doubt about that. I don't think he can be captain and play.
“So if that's what you're asking, the captaincy of the Ryder Cup is so much bigger a deal than anything, and particularly when you think of something like, I know people say you had Tiger (as playing captain) at the Presidents Cup.
“For that, we know the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup are not the same thing. The stress levels for the captain at the Ryder Cup, the requirements, the pressure, the timing, the way it goes about, it's a much quicker event.
“The Ryder Cup, I do not in any shape or form think a captain can be a player.”
After initially saying he wouldn’t be a captain’s pick for his own Ryder Cup team, Bradley changed his tune after his win on Sunday, as he feels a vice captain like Jim Furyk could step into his shoes.
“To be honest with you, I never really planned on playing.” Bradley said on Sunday.
“I really wanted to just be the captain. I really felt strongly about that. I want to serve the guys. They asked me to do a job. I want to do it to the best of my abilities.
“Now, with the amazing vice captains that I have, and I have a better perspective of playing in the Presidents Cup and being around a lot of the guys, I feel a lot more comfortable if I went that route.
“I'm really proud of the guys that are vice captains and -- you know, obviously, you got Jim Furyk, one of the greatest players to play and also an incredibly great captain at the Presidents Cup.”
US star Collin Morikawa spoke about the possibility of Bradley playing In New York when asked ahead of the Rocket Classic in Detroit.
“I mean, look, right now he’s playing as one of the best Americans and one of the best golfers in the world, winning a signature event,” Morikawa said.
“The consistency I think he’s brought this year, I’m sure there are already contingencies to be put in place because it’s not like it wasn’t a possibility that that could happen. That’s on him.”
