It’s been a whirlwind year for Keegan Bradley. Last August, Bradley narrowly missed out on captaining the 2023 US Ryder Cup team. Ten months later, Bradley was named the captain of the American team at the 2025 Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black – an amazing surprise. A few weeks after that, Jim Furyk named Bradley as an assistant captain for the 2024 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal in Canada. After a few weeks thatBradley won the BMW Championship, his seventh PGA Tour title, and joined the Presidents Cup team as captain’s choice. Bradley went on to post a 2-1-0 record in the Americans’ victory at the Internationals, 18.5-11.5.
Wow. That’s a lot of action, and there was one man by Bradley’s side through it all: his caddy, Scott Vail.
On this week’s episode of Subpar, Vail told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz a bunch of anecdotes about his life and work on Tour, but his story about what it was like to find out his boss had just been tapped to be the US Ryder The next cup. the captain was particularly influential.
“Monday morning [after the Travelers Championship]I woke up at 7 in the morning and I already had a text from him saying — you know, we text each other a lot, but we’ve been on the road for four weeks,” Vail began. “It was weird to have it, you know, so early the next morning. The text said, ‘Call me, I need to talk to you.’ And I’m like, oh, what did I do? What did I do last week that is driving me away today?
“So I pick up the phone immediately. Call him. I’d say, hey, is everything okay? And you’re like, you won’t believe this. And he tells me they want him as Ryder Cup captain.
“And I was like, oh my god. Like, I was shocked at first, and I was like, emotional. I almost cried because I know what it means to him, and what not being in the team last year meant to him. It was like this whirlwind of emotions and I was sitting there like, I’m sure I was crying a little bit.”
Vail had a front-row seat to Bradley’s struggles and triumphs last year, and said he’s excited for Bradley to get the chance to captain the team.
“I know how hard he works and I look after him as a manager, as a friend,” he said. “And yeah, he let me know, and I was like, are you going to do it? You have to do it, right? Captain America! Bethpage, you studied there.”
The hardest part, Vail said, is keeping it a secret until an official announcement is made.
“I had to keep my mouth shut, I think 10 to 14 days,” Vail said. “You’re like, don’t tell anyone. And I’m like, I didn’t tell a soul. And that was hard to do. But yes, it will be amazing.”
For more from Vail, including what it was like when Bradley he didn’t get good news about the Ryder Cup in 2023, see the full episode below.
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