'This changes the story': Keegan Bradley eyes Ryder Cup playing role after Travelers triumph

"No, I will either make the team on points, I'm not going to pick myself. The only way that would happen is if the team was insisting on it, but even if they did, I don't see that happening. I want to make the team on points, otherwise I'm going to be the captain."

In the interim Bradley has won the BMW Championship in August 2024 and now the Travelers courtesy of a two-shot swing at the 72nd hole to pip Tommy Fleetwood.

The 39-year-old is now up to seventh in the world, his highest ranking ever, and ninth on the Ryder Cup rankings. There's still plenty of golf to be played – the top six eligible players following the BMW Championship on August 17 will make the team – but Bradley's position is now very different to previous months.

"This changes the story a little bit. I never would have thought about playing if I hadn't won. This definitely opens the door to play. I don't know if I'm going to do it or not but I certainly have to take a pretty hard look at what's best for the team and we'll see. We still got a long ways to go. This definitely changes things a little bit, and we'll all get together and figure out the best way to do this," explained Bradley, who now has eight wins on the PGA Tour.

One line of thinking is that Bradley might step down as the US skipper which might make way for Tiger Woods to come in as captain. The chances of that happening are probably closer to zero; we're too far down the line and Bradley is all in as being the leader.

As things stand he has four vice-captains – Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker, Kevin Kisner and Jim Furyk – with more to come. There's plenty of backroom muscle for Bradley to play in a round of fourballs each day before lining up early in the Sunday singles.

Bizarrely the call from the PGA of America asking him to be the next captain came a year to the day of his victory at the Travelers. Ever since he's been getting same questions but now the answers are changing.

"Whether I play well or play poorly, it's something that I have become used to. To be honest with you, I never really planned on playing. I really wanted to just be the captain. I really felt strongly about that. I want to serve the guys. They asked me to do a job. I want to do it to the best of my abilities.

"Now, with the amazing vice-captains that I have, and I have a better perspective of playing in the Presidents Cup and being around a lot of the guys, I feel a lot more comfortable if I went that route. I'm really proud of the guys that are vice-captains, you Jim Furyk, one of the greatest players to play and also an incredibly great captain at the Presidents Cup."

Even with nearly two months of golf to play Bradley's world ranking won't drop too far even with a run of poor results. Then again, with an 8th at the PGA, a 7th at Memorial and now this win in his last four starts he may well just keep the heater going and play his way onto the team.

"When they called me and told me that I was being the Ryder Cup captain, the first thing they said was, ‘We want you to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1962.' And I mean my head was spinning, I didn't know what they were talking about, but they knew that that was a possibility and that we would have things in place for that.

"I feel like I'm playing the best golf of my career right now. A year ago I don't know if I would have thought I would be seventh in the world, but I certainly thought I would be, you know, contending in tournaments. If Tiger or Phil got a captaincy at my age they would have done it the same way. I've just been lucky enough to be asked to do this at a younger age."