DORAL, Fla. – Keegan Bradley said it’s time for the U.S. Ryder Cup team to have “a reset,” and Jim Furyk is the right man for that job.
Bradley, who was the U.S. Ryder Cup captain that lost at home at Bethpage Black in 2025, said he was on the call as a member of the Ryder Cup selection committee and extended the job to Furyk. The PGA of America announced that Furyk, the losing captain in 2018 in Paris, would be the U.S. captain for a second time on Friday.
“I don’t know if he ever thought he was going to get this chance,” Bradley said at Trump National Doral on the eve of the PGA Tour’s Cadillac Championship, “so I think that it’s a pretty great feeling for him to get another shot at this.”
The news that Furyk would be at the helm again wasn’t well received by everyone. Some compared it to a retread manager in sports that already has failed at the job. The guy whose team got whipped 17½ to 10½ in Paris? Yes, indeed. He could become the first U.S. captain to lose twice on the road.
“I think that’s a point you wouldn’t hear from the players; I think the players are excited,” Bradley said, “I think the best thing to do is to have a known commodity, a sort of reset here.”
Furyk, 55, has plenty of Ryder Cup experience, playing nine times, serving as a vice-captain in four, including for Bradley last year, and his one stint as captain. He’s also a wily veteran of the Presidents Cup and was the winning captain in 2024 in Montreal. Bradley was duly impressed the way Furyk stayed the course despite the U.S. getting swept in all five match on the second day of the Presidents Cup to tie things at 5.
"When we lost that day 0-5, it was pretty shocking," Bradley said. "And he was just the same captain he was the day before. I think that's what makes Jim great is there's no ups and downs."
The U.S. recovered for an 18½ -11½ victory.
Other candidates for the captaincy included Stewart Cink and Justin Leonard. Furyk, who has been either a player, captain or assistant on every Cup since 1997, was a safe pick for a team that hasn’t won on foreign soil since 1993.
“Jim has the respect of the guys and he’s been around all of us. … he’s been involved in like 15 in a row,” said Bradley. “He was the captain at the Presidents Cup and he’s been part of the system and I think he brings a lot of experience, learned a lot over the years and, in fact, somebody that we all really look up to.”
Bradley used the word “steady” to describe what he liked about Furyk’s style as captain at the 2024 Presidents Cup, where Furyk made him a captain's pick.
"He's not gonna get up and give you speeches getting the guys fired up and all that,” Bradley said. “Jim, he's himself. And I think that I really liked that."
Bradley was quick to point out that he was never seriously under consideration for the job this time.
“I think that having somebody that was close to making the team isn’t really what the position is about,” said Bradley, who threatened to earn his way on the team, including winning the Travelers Championship in June. “I don’t know if they totally expected me to be where I sat. I was pretty high ranking in the world [he reached as high as No. 6 in the Official World Ranking]. I don’t know if they wanted to go through that again. But I think more, they’re willing to go back to the more traditional world.”
It had been a practice of the U.S. team since the fallout of the U.S. team’s loss in 2014 and the formation of the Task Force for the most recent captain to stay on as a vice captain and help his successor. Bradley, who has yet to be an vice captain, said he would be open to doing just that.
“I would love to have another chance because it’s part of my soul that’s torn out, and I would love to get a chance to revenge that, and I’m happy Jim’s got that.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Keegan Bradley backs Jim Furyk as Ryder Cup captain for 2027