Xander Schauffele admits Keegan Bradley’s appointment as the US Ryder Cup captain for 2025 is “surprising”, but has backed him to do a “great job” at Bethpage Black.
Bradley was confirmed as captain on Monday after Tiger Woods decided against leading the team in New York next year.
With 38-year-old Bradley having been left out of the team for last year’s matches in Rome, the move took many by surprise, including two-time Ryder Cup player Schauffele.
“Yeah, it’s surprising,” the world number three said during his pre-Scottish Open news conference at The Renaissance Club.
“You typically expect someone that’s a little bit older to get selected as a captain. I think a lot of people were banking on Tiger to do it.
“He obviously has a lot on his plate. Keegan expressed his love for the Ryder Cup publicly, which we all saw.
“I haven’t talked to him or seen him yet but I’m sure he’s over the moon and is going to do a great job.”
Despite winning twice on the PGA Tour last year, Bradley was not given one of six captain’s picks by Zach Johnson, who gave the nod to Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas.
As a result, Bradley – who played on the losing US teams in 2012 and 2014 – will perhaps be driven to prove a point and Schauffele has backed him to bring passion and intensity to the team’s bid to regain the cup after a 16½-11½ defeat by Europe last year.
“He is so laidback off the course,” added 30-year-old Schauffele, who won his first major in May at the USPGA Championship.
“If you get him in like a dinner setting, he loves sports and he’ll talk about sports all night long.
“He’s a very passionate individual. On the course he’s intense, that’s just how he competes and how he is.
“As a captain, he’s going to have a mixed bag and he’s not going to be afraid to hold a speech with the guys and get everyone going.”
While Schauffele believes Bradley’s presence will be a positive for the team next year, he says it is ultimately down to the players to perform in order to win back the cup.
“When you lose that many cups overseas, you definitely start to get in your own head,” admitted Schauffele, who took one point from four matches in Rome last year.
“Just like I didn’t win a tournament for two years, you look in the mirror and start going, what’s wrong here. That’s a little different, but they are going to point every single direction.
“But at the end of the day us players didn’t play well. I haven’t watched a lot of cups overseas where both teams played well and it was super competitive and teams got beat.
“Myself, I felt like I played awful. I felt like I didn’t show up until the final round and it was already way too late to play good golf at that point.”