Keegan Bradley isn’t going to downplay it. The decision facing him on Wednesday morning in Frisco, Texas? It’s the “biggest decision” of his life.
“I’m ready for it,” Bradley said at last week’s Tour Championship. “I know this is the biggest decision of my life.”
And what decision is that, exactly? Well, only the biggest decision of the year in golf — the six players who will be selected onto the U.S. team as Ryder Cup “captain’s selections.” Bradley will make his decision official on Wednesday morning in a ceremony at PGA of America headquarters at 11 a.m. EST, closing out a “two-year process” that has seen the number of eligible players dwindle from a few dozen to just a handful.
Still, as is the case with every Ryder Cup, only 12 players can make the team, and far more than 12 players are worthy of consideration.
So how is the decision made? And what is all the hubbub about? We break it down below.
Like most other things in golf, the Ryder Cup selection process exists at the intersection of some complicated math and some particularly confusing rules. Thankfully, the underlying process is actually fairly simple, so long as you understand what you’re looking at.
The first six players on each team are what we call “automatic qualifiers.” This group is selected based on points accrued over a two-year period beginning after the previous Ryder Cup. Points are roughly correlated to earnings, so paying attention to the Ryder Cup standings isn’t all that hard to grasp. If you play well, you make more money, and if you make more money, you earn more Ryder Cup points. (The only big caveat here: LIV events are not included on the Ryder Cup points list, meaning that some players from the rival tour are underrepresented on the rankings relative to their play.)
The remaining six roster spots on either team are decided via “captain’s selections,” which are essentially wild card picks made by the captain of either Ryder Cup team (in 2025, those two captains are Keegan Bradley for the Americans, and Luke Donald for the Europeans).
In theory, a captain’s selection could be anybody. If Keegan Bradley thought Tiger Woods was a worthy player on the U.S. side, he could select Woods to play on the team despite Tiger ranking as the 148th American in the points race. If Donald thought that players six through 12 on the points list were worthy of a slot on the team, he could select those six players, too. The only rule is that Bradley and Donald are the ones who make the decision.
As for why? The points system and captain’s picks were created to assist the process of placing the 12 best players on each roster. The first six auto-qualifiers ensure everybody has equal opportunity to make the team, and nobody who deserves a spot on the team is left out on account of a “boys’ club.” The bottom six captain’s selections ensure that players who miss time from injury, or those who are valuable to the Ryder Cup roster in ways that recent form doesn’t necessarily dictate, are not left off the roster.
The main storyline is the one at the center of this year’s Ryder Cup: U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, whose tortured history at the event has taken on a new shade in 2025. After a year of surprisingly great play, Bradley is facing an unusual debate: Whether to pick himself for the roster as the first playing captain in 50 years, or to pick somebody else who may deserve a spot on the team less. Bradley has seriously considered all sides of the matter, but it’s not clear which way he’s leaning with less than 24 hours left. In a Sisyphean twist, his roster candidacy is the most difficult one to parse out.
On the European side, it’s possible that 11 out of 12 of the team’s players from a victorious 2023 campaign in Rome could return. With the ballots still to be tallied, there are no certainties, and Donald could opt to add a hard-charging dose of new blood to the team like Harry Hall. But for now, it is possible that the only change to the roster could be Nicolai Hojgaard for his twin brother, Rasmus. Donald will make his announcement at 9 a.m. ET on Monday.
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