Bradley opts not to pick himself to play at Ryder Cup

Keegan Bradley hopes a selfless act can turn into US points after the Ryder Cup captain resisted strong temptation to combine his role with playing duties at Bethpage next month.

- Ewan Murray

His confirmation ended the prospect of a first Ryder Cup playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.

The US turned to Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Sam Burns to back up the six automatic qualifiers in an eagerly awaited announcement made by Bradley yesterday.

Bradley had finished ahead of Burns, Cantlay and Young on the US points table. The 39-year-old is the No 11-ranked golfer in the world and eighth among Americans, but ultimately he decided it would be either unreasonable or unnecessary to perform two jobs at once.

"If I felt I needed to play in this team to help the team win, I would have," Bradley said. "The decision was made a while ago that I wasn't playing. The last 48 hours we had the team set.