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Keegan Bradley’s caddie Scott Vail feared the worst before Keegan Bradley was named the 2025 US Ryder Cup captain.
It was a left field appointment from the PGA of America after Tiger Woods turned down the chance to lead the home side at Bethpage Black.
But Vail had no concerns over his man sitting in the hotseat.
Instead, he thought he had been sacked as Bradley’s looper following a blunt 7am text from the former major champion.
Speaking on the SubPar podcast, Vail recalled the moment he got a blunt text from Bradley one day after the Travelers Championship.
“I got up at 7am and I had a text already from him saying, ‘You know we text back and forth a lot, but we’ve been on the road for like four weeks,’” he said.
“It was weird to have it, you know, straight away the next morning.
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“The text said, ‘Call me, I need to speak to you’. And I’m like, ‘Oh, what did I do?’ What did I do last week that’s getting me fired today?”
It turned out that Vail – who teamed up with Bradley in 2017 – was in for a huge surprise.
“I pick up the phone immediately,” he said. “I call him. I’m like, ‘Hey, is everything alright?’ And he’s like, ‘You’re not gonna believe this.’ And he tells me that they want him as the Ryder Cup captain.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh’. Like, I was shocked at first, and then I was like, emotional. I was almost crying because I know how much it means to him, how much not being on the team last year meant to him.
“It was just like this whirlwind of emotions and I’m sitting there, pretty sure I was crying a little bit.”
And while he remains on Bradley’s bag, Vail might even be called into action in New York next September.
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As the world No.13, Bradley is well-placed to make a charge for a playing spot at the Ryder Cup, which would make him the first playing-captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.
It’s a proposition he’d enjoy, too.
“I would love to be a playing captain,” Bradley said in August. “No one has really had the opportunity that I’ve had.
“I think you could have given Phil or Tiger a chance to be captain at my age and they would have played on the teams. But it’s never really had a chance to happen.
“It’s going to be really hard for me to make that team, but if I make the team, I’ll play. I don’t see myself being a captain’s pick. But I’ll be proud to just be the captain.”
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