The U.S. captain and basketball Hall of Famer first met at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah
Keegan Bradley was eager to boast and to rib his good friend.
After seeing that then-Charlotte Hornets majority owner Michael Jordan was in charge of the team’s X account for opening night in Oct. 2014, Bradley chose to fire off a reply that would soon backfire.
“MJ how does it feel to get beat by me everyday at bears club?!,” Bradley wrote in reference to their matches at the Jupiter, Florida, golf club.
Bradley’s message came six years before “The Last Dance” aired, so maybe he had forgotten about Jordan’s hyper-competitiveness — especially if he had been beating “His Airness” on the golf course on a regular basis.
Jordan, not one to ever back down from a challenge, saw Bradley’s needling and sent his own reply, one that was a social media-version of his free-throw line slam from the 1987 Slam Dunk contest.
"Last time I looked, you were wearing MY shoes,” Jordan wrote. “You don't see me wearing Air Keegans..."
Much like a golfer after hitting a bad shot with no way out, Bradley took his medicine.
“Hahaha. Damn. Game over,” he replied.
A relationship founded in golf
How did the greatest basketball player of all time and an up-and-coming, then-three time PGA Tour winner form a relationship where busting chops was a regular feature?
Over golf, of course.
Bradley and Jordan first met at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club in Illinois. U.S. captain Davis Love III invited Jordan, who he has known since their college days at North Carolina, to be part of the team as an honorary member. Jordan spoke to the players that week, hoping to inspire an American side that had lost four of the previous five events to the Europeans.
Jordan’s words didn’t result in victory as Europe won 14 ½ to 13 ½ to claim a second consecutive Ryder Cup. But his presence was the continuation of a passion he had developed for not only playing golf, but the event itself. Jordan has since been a regular at the bi-annual event and while it's unknown if Bradley will invite him into the Americans' room at Bethpage State Park for this week's Ryder Cup, the basketball Hall of Famer has acted as a sounding board for the U.S. captain.
“He's there for me all the time, and a lot of people in his life,” Bradley said of Jordan. “I rely on not only him but other people to help guide me through heavy decisions, decision-making, so he's always there for me. It's an amazing thing to meet your idols and it turns out they're just incredible people and caring. He's been really amazing.”
Bradley, a long-time wearer of Jordan brand golf shoes, has also been in touch with another G.O.A.T., former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, to pick his brain about getting every little edge to take back the Ryder Cup, which the U.S. won in 2021 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, but lost in 2023 at Italy’s Marco Simone Golf and Country Club.
“Whatever that is. It could be a small thing, could be a big thing, the smallest gestures now can make the biggest difference in September,” Bradley said on the “Pat McAfee Show" in June. “I'm cashing in all my chips.”
Michael Jordan, the 'human ATM'
Jordan may have six NBA championships, 11 NBA Finals and regular-season MVP awards, two Olympic gold medals and a slew of other accolades, but his greatness was confined to the basketball court. Bradley is the professional golfer and hasn’t been shy about bringing up his dominance over Jordan whenever he can.
While the Bulls superstar may have been a Hall of Fame caliber trash talker on the court, Bradley has enjoyed reminding the world that he’s taken care of Jordan on the golf course.
Here are a few examples:
“That's why I love playing with him. I call him my human ATM. I can just go out there if I need some cash.” — 2015, ESPN
"Put it this way: He's bought my girlfriend and me a lot of dinners.” — 2015, CBS Sports
During a 2020 appearance on the "Subpar" podcast, co-host Colt Knost told Bradley that he had reached out to Jordan to find out about their golf matches. “As of lately, Keegan has been my whipping boy,” Jordan texted Knost, to which Bradley snapped back, "So, if you win one match out of 250, does that count as a whipping boy?” Bradley, not done returning fire on Jordan, later said, “I always say, if I’m running low and I don’t want to go to the bank, I just text MJ and ask if he wants to play a few holes.”
Bradley is a two-time Ryder Cup player. He automatically qualified for the U.S. team in 2012 and was a captain's pick two years later by Tom Watson. Both times the Europeans came out on top.
While he could have picked himself to be part of the 2025 team, Bradley ultimately decided what was best for the Americans’ chances of reclaiming the Ryder Cup was for him to solely be a captain and not be one of the 12 players fighting for points over the three-day event.
“You realize what a dream it is to be a Ryder Cup captain and what a dream it is to be a Ryder Cup captain for these 12 guys that I know so well, and a Ryder Cup captain at Bethpage Black, where I showed up to St. John's as an 18-year-old kid with a dream of playing on the PGA Tour and never dreaming of being a Ryder Cup captain and I get to return to that same course as the captain of these guys representing our country, and that's most important,” Bradley said in August.
“Again, I don't care how it works out, as long as we win on Sunday. I'm incredibly honored to be the Ryder Cup captain. I think part of it's been a relief and I get to focus on this and cheer these guys on for the next month or so.”
Category: General Sports
