Predicting U.S. Ryder Cup captain's picks: Making calls on behalf of captain Keegan Bradley for 2025

While the PGA Tour season is now in the books, the 2025 Ryder Cup discussion remains still wide open. United States captain Keegan Bradley is set to announce his six captain's picks on Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET as he rounds out his team that will take on the Europe at Bethpage Black in New York from Sept. 26-28.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler leads the charge for the red, white and blue, flanked by recent major championship winners such as J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau. The remaining automatic qualifiers are Russell Henley and Harris English, who both enjoyed consistent campaigns to lock their spots among the six automatic qualifiers on the roster.

While half of the team is sured up, the other half is a bit of a mystery. Numerous candidates have worthy résumés, including the headman himself, who could become the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer and the first ever to hold such a role when he used a captain's pick on himself.

What Bradley ultimately decides will have a trickle down effect when it comes to roster composition and the number of openings available.

Will he decide to go with experience in the form of Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Brian Harman, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns, who were all members of the losing squad in 2023 at Marco Simone? Will he inject new blood into this team with potential rookie selections like Ben Griffin, Maverick McNealy and Cameron Young? Will we see a combination of the two?

Is there a player who could emerge from out of left field? Everything remains up in the air just a couple days away from Bradley's monumental decision, so CBS Sports is here to dig deeper into who Bradley should select to represent the Americans at Bethpage Black where the U.S. enters at a meager -130 favorite, per DraftKings.

Who should Keegan Bradley select to fill out the team?

 
McDonald: These calls have been locked since the beginning of the postseason ... for the most part. The U.S. would have experience with players like Thomas and Cantlay -- respective Ryder Cup records of 7-4-2 and 5-2-1 -- who are in good-enough form. These selections create interesting potential pairings, such as Thomas teaming up with DeChambeau while Cantlay fits seamlessly with long-time partner Schauffele.

With four remaining spots on the team, two go to the captain himself and Young. At this point, Bradley deciding not to play would create an endless stream of questions for the other players to answer; instead, he will be able to face the music himself should play turn sour. Meanwhile, Young -- just a kid from the Bronx -- has transformed into a great putter this season and stands as a fantastic course fit for Bethpage Black.

The hardest decision comes down to the the final two spots with Burns, Griffin and Morikawa remaining as options. Frankly, it would not be that heartbreaking to leave any of these players home. Morikawa and Burns have experience, while Griffin has played the best among the trio in 2025. Ultimately, Griffin and Morikawa are the call as that gives the U.S. a hair more flexibility in roster construction given Morikawa has been the most accurate driver and second-best American iron player (behind Scheffler) over the last 50 rounds.

Kalland: If Bradley's picking himself, which you must assume he will, it becomes difficult to justify leaving anyone above him in the Ryder Cup standings off the team. Among those four, Thomas is a lock, and Morikawa probably is, too -- even if his form suggests picking him requires significant scrutiny. Griffin is on the bubble, but he should get in thanks to a strong August (after some iffy play in July). 

It doesn't seem as though McNealy is really in the conversation even though he jumped Bradley at the BMW Championship; he'll be on the outside looking in given of the way some of the guys below him finished. Young has made himself a lock over the past month, and Cantlay's performance at East Lake, coupled with his experience in the Ryder Cup, is going to get him the nod over Burns.

Burns over Griffin makes sense for fit reasons -- though there are arguments for Griffin over Morikawa, the latter of whom seems completely lost right now, which is terrifying going into Bethpage Black. Burns is such an obvious pairing with Scheffler -- not only given they're good friends but because Burns can get red-hot on the greens. Since you don't have the Thomas-Spieth pairing this year, Scheffler-Burns along with Schauffele-Cantlay would alleviate some of the stress for Bradley of figuring out who plays together.