Keegan Bradley admits Ryder Cup mistake as Bethpage played to Europe's advantage

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley will have plenty of time to second guess the decisions he made in the years to come, but he already identified at least one. 

“I think I would have set the course up a little different,” he said on Sunday shortly after Europe withstood a ferocious rally to win the Ryder Cup 15-13.  

The U.S. captain has a say in the course setup and Bradley elected to cut the rough. As a result, there was little penalty for missing the fairway and most of the players were able to hit a high percentage of greens in regulation. It turned the Ryder Cup into a putting contest and the Euros dominated on the greens. NBC Sports analyst Brad Faxon recounted how he ran into European vice-captain Edoardo Molinari, who oversees the team’s data analytics, who was surprised that the setup favored the visitors.

“He told me, ‘This is exactly playing into our hands.’ Not the way he thought that the Americans would set it up,” Faxon said.

It took away some of what makes American players such as Scottie Scheffler and reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun special, and put shorter hitters such as Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa at a disadvantage. Harris English is another member of the USA team who does his best work on hard courses, not pushovers. 

It didn’t help matters that rain arrived at Bethpage Black on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday, saturating the grounds with more than inch and a half of water and leading to the biennial competition being played under preferred lies. 

“I definitely made a mistake on the course setup. I should have listened a little bit more to my intuition,” Bradley said. “For whatever reason, that wasn't the right way to set the course up. The greens were as soft as I've ever seen greens without it raining. Especially here, it can get pretty firm, and they never firmed up.”

Bradley explained that he had studied the data analytics and signed off on the plan to set up the course to be a birdie-fest.

“We thought this was the best way to set the golf course up to win. You look at past Ryder Cups, and that's kind of how it goes. You know, sometimes, you've got to make a decision on what to do, and you know, if I could go back, I probably would have changed that,” Bradley said. “But the Europeans played just incredible golf. Doesn't matter how you set the course up when you play that well.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ryder Cup course set-up mistake admitted by US captain Keegan Bradley