00:00When Keegan Bradley was announced, I think you, maybe like myself, were like, yeah, I see it as a good fit, but also Keegan Bradley's playing really good golf right now. How is this going to work? What were your initial thoughts when you saw that Keegan was named as the captain of this U.S. Ryder Cup team?
00:17Yeah, I mean, I was skeptical in the beginning, you know, because, you know, Keegan's obviously still a great player. And, you know, it felt like it was a bit of a deviation away from standard pro, I guess, a little bit. I mean, Zach Johnson's obviously, he's not one of the older guys either, I suppose. And, you know, he was captain in Rome, right? But Keegan, I mean, to me, being still an active, competitive player, I thought it was quite an aggressive choice.
00:42And, you know, to me, the most surprising thing is the way he's managed to play over the last 12 to 18 months with, you know, the River Ryder Cup on his shoulders and everything that goes into all the activation with corporate sponsors and all the planning, everything to the modern day Ryder Cup. It's such a massive thing, right? Trying to create the environment for the players, towels and locker rooms and clubhouses and just everything that we know that kind of goes into a Ryder Cup.
01:11So the fact that he's been able to play the way he has and obviously play his way into a position where, you know, if it's another captain, is Keegan Bradley on the 12th?
01:22I think most people's opinion is absolutely. He deserves to, he played to a level where he is one of the, you know, one of the 12 players that should be going to Beth Page Black next week.
01:33As a, I was, I actually watched the, I watched the live press conference, you know, and as he was making his picks, I think it was when he picked Ben Griffin.
01:44I kind of said to myself, he's not picking himself here.
01:47And I think you and I both, as soon as that, that was the pick.
01:51I thought that was the guy that might get left off the team.
01:54Although nobody had earned their way on the team more than Ben though, with how he had played this year.
01:59For sure. And that's absolutely no disrespect to Ben Griffin, but I kind of felt like Keegan was going to go down the list a little bit.
02:05And I kind of felt like he maybe jumped.
02:07And then when he jumped to Ben, who I thought was going to be in around 11 or 12, as far as maybe ranking the order of, of, of the players that get picked.
02:15You know, when he jumped to him, I said to myself, Oh my God, he's not going to pick himself.
02:20Which, you know, was one part kind of a little bit of a shock, a little bit kind of of a disappointment because we're like, you know, first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 67 or 69, whatever it was.
02:31And it would have been unbelievably exciting to see him go there next week and try and be playing captain would have been, would have been historic stuff.
02:39Right. So, but then, you know, when I sat back and thought about it a little bit, you know, I, it felt like to me, and this is just my opinion that, you know, he was in a damned if he does, damned if he doesn't situation, because if he, if he, if he, if he's himself as a playing captain, huge amount of pressure goes on to his shoulders going into there next weekend.
02:58Right. And like an unfair amount of expectation and pressure, because if he doesn't produce and he doesn't play well, well, it's like, well, he shouldn't have done it.
03:06You know, you know, nobody can do both in the modern era because of the asks on the captain and the amount of the amount of stuff that the captain has to do off the golf course, media, press, corporate, you know, all the planning, all the team stuff.
03:22Right. So, you know, if he, if he picks himself and plays badly, he just sets himself up for disaster, you know, and to me, that was just too much pressure to handle.
03:31Obviously, you know, he obviously could have picked himself and played well and the team wins and he's a hero forever. Right. But, you know, and it's legendary stuff.
03:39But to me, I felt like, I thought the way he handled the press conference. I mean, I think he just, you know, he, he, he's such class, you know, I mean, he really felt like he was going to do the greatest job that he could for team America by stepping aside.
03:55And being the captain for these 12 guys and being the best captain that he could be, because, you know, to try and do both, you know, something's got to give, there's got to be a 10% or a 20%, maybe give on, on one side or the other.
04:09Maybe he's not going to play as much golf as he should because he's got, you know, expectations off the course.
04:15So it was a really tough scenario.
04:17And I felt like he, he, the only decision in my opinion that he could covered himself and a huge amount of class by, by, by the way he doctored himself and the way he explained his decision-making.
04:29And, you know, I think to go in there next week, being led by a, a guy who's going to do a phenomenal job.
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