Ryder Cup “Captain’s Picks”
News Conference
NBC Studio
8H
TUESDAY, SEPT.2, 2014
JULIUS MASON: Good evening, everyone. I'm The PGA of America's Julius Mason and I'd like to welcome you joining us on the phone lines from around the world and those on site right here at studio in RockefellerPlaza in New York City for the U.S. Ryder Cup Captain's pick news conference. We are just three weeks away from the Ryder Cup in Gleneagles, Scotland. Team Europe has solidified their team this morning, and tonight we will find out what three players will join and complete Team USA.
Right now it's my pleasure to introduce the 38th president of The PGA of America, from the Legends Golf Club in Franklin, Indiana, Mr.Ted Bishop.
TED BISHOP: Thanks, Julius. Everyone here knows we're only 24 days away from the first shot being struck in the 40th Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in Scotland. As Julius said this morning, European captain Paul McGinley rounded out his team by picking Stephen Gallacher, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood.
Our nine American players were excited after the thrilling Sunday we had at Valhalla, and tonight we are here to find out who is going to round out our team.
Before we do that, Tom, I was thinking today, our journey actually started on this Ryder Cup I guess back in November of 2011, and the question I would start out with is: Has this journey unfolded as you thought it might?
TOM WATSON: Well, I remember that phone call. I was out on the pheasant field at Feherty's IED Pheasant Hunt up in South Dakota, and I get this call from, "Hi, this is Ted Bishop from the PGA, and I'd like to talk to you about the Ryder Cup."
I said, "Well, Ted, I'm just a little bit busy right now, can I call you back," and put the phone down, it started the procedure. I remember between the time that I hung up and then called you back, I said, "I sure hope this is the call I've been waiting for for almost 20 years and that was to be asked to be the Ryder Cup captain again."
TED BISHOP: You talk about that time lapse, and you go back to 1993. Talk a little about how the Ryder Cup has changed since 1993 and to today.
TOM WATSON: Well, I tell you, thanks to Julius Mason, there's a lot more to do as the captain. We had a wonderful time at the YeartoGo Event at Gleneagles with my counterpart, Paul McGinley, and we had a couple days of talking about the Ryder Cup right there at the site, and it was a special time to have and to really start the people thinking about the Ryder Cup a year in advance. That never happened in 1993.
Throughout the year, I think the best pleasure, the biggest pleasure that I have is the fact I've been able to get to know some players that I would never have had the chance to get to know before.
It's fun to be able to go out and I've played a few more of what I call the kids's tournaments and had a chance to play with some of the kids. Called them up and said, let's go out and play, some of the players I was looking at, and had to call yesterday and today to give some of them the bad news and some of them the good news.
But to get to know these players, and I'll get be getting to know them a lot better, these players coming up as you said in the next 24 days in the Ryder Cup. You create lifelong bonds at the Ryder Cup.
I remember all the Ryder Cups that I had. In fact, the best memory I think I remember in the Ryder Cup was in '77 watching the American flag go up, and realizing that I was on a team of Americans playing for my country. That was unique, and that was probably the best memory I ever had at the Ryder Cup.
TED BISHOP: Going back to Scotland for the second time in the history of the Ryder Cup. You mentioned the yearout celebration and I had the opportunity to be at Great Britain with you between the Scottish and British Opens, and I've seen firsthand at infection the Scottish people have for you. I think arguably you're the most popular modernday player in the history of Scottish golf.
So Tom, can we count on the Scottish fans being on our side when we go there in Gleneagles?
TOM WATSON: As we say in America, there ain't no chance. (Laughter from the audience) There will be no shortage of partisanship when it comes to the Scottish people pulling for the European team. That's the beauty of the Ryder Cup is to be able to have an event, and you really are pulling for one team or the other.
I think one of my first memory I remember on the golf course was when in my first match or second match with Hubert Green. We were playing at Royal Lytham and St.Annes and I got around to the 11th hole and we had not lost a hole the whole day and I missed about a fivefoot putt to lose the hole and I heard the cheer go up. And that's never happened before. I mean, I'm sitting there, and people when you miss the putt at a normal tournament, they go, "Ohhhh." They don't go, "Yay!!" like that.
That's what the Ryder Cup really is. There's no harm done being partisan as far as pulling for one team or the other.
TED BISHOP: I know everybody is anxious to hear your picks so let's get on with that.
TOM WATSON: Well, it's been a great process. I've had the as I said, I've had the opportunity to meet and be with a lot of players over the last two years. The process has been mostly just a learning process where I've gotten to know the players, and being able to understand how they feel about the Ryder Cup.
I can tell you that all the players that I talked to, every one of them without a doubt had one thing to say about the Ryder Cup: They want to go back and they want to make amends for what happened at Medinah two years ago. I said that from it the beginning. I said that from the beginning, from our standpoint, our team has that one focus. The Europeans played great in the last round in 2012, and that was a hard, hard loss for the American players, and it still sticks with a lot of them.
I've had the opportunity to talk with them and at this point I'd like to really show off with the very first one who was he has the bag of Ryder Cup clothes still in his room unopened from 2012, Keegan Bradley.
Keegan, he's the epitome of somebody who wanted to get on the team. He has struggled with it, honestly. He wanted to make the team so badly. I commend him for playing under the amount of pressure he put on himself. That's one of the reasons that I picked him, because he played with all this pressure on himself to get on the Ryder Cup Team.
Keegan has the ability to hit the ball a long way. In fact, he came up to Gleneagles before the Open Championship and played with me, and we basically did a practice round. He took that day out of his time to prepare for the Open Championship to come up to Gleneagles, and that was a special time to go around the golf course, and seeing how he played the golf course.
Now, Keegan, he can go real low. He certainly teamed up great with Phil Mickelson. There are a lot of great pluses about Keegan, but the most important thing he brings to it is his unbridled passion to play on the Ryder Cup Team.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you, captain, very much. And Keegan, congratulations, and welcome to Team USA. Can you let us know what it felt like when you got that phone call from Captain Watson, please?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: Well, first off, I'd like to thank the captain and all of the assistants for all they have done, and The PGA of America and president Ted Bishop. I finished up in Boston, and I was walking up 18 and the entire crowd basically started chanting "Ryder Cup," which was very special for me personally. It's my hometown. Got done and was in the parking lot with my girlfriend, Jillian, and I was down and thinking there was a good chance I wasn't going to be on this team.
The captain called me and told me I was on the team and I just hugged Jillian, and it actually was pretty emotional. I made no secret of how important this team is to me, and how bad I want to go back and win the Ryder Cup. I think that this is a redemption year for a lot of guys that were on the team last year, and it's just going to be an unbelievable trip over to Scotland.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and start taking questions, ladies and gentlemen, and we'll begin with the first question from Golf Channel's Rich Lerner.
RICH LERNER: Congratulations at Medinah for the first two days you were an absolute ball of fire and you were really entertaining. Do you have any problems whatsoever fistpumping in the face of the Scottish fans?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: You know, it's going to be interesting. I've played on, this will be my second Ryder Cup and a Presidents Cup team and they have all been at home. I'm going to lean on a lot of the veterans to kind of guide me, and obviously Phil a BUNCH. I think that I need to be respectful to the fans and their team. We're going to be on their home turf.
But I'm not going to hide any emotion. I think the Ryder Cup is a time to let the emotion come out of you. We are so often trying to fight and hold down, and I think the Ryder Cup is a great example of when you can just let it go. Sometimes that can make you play great golf.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you, very much. Stick with us for ten minutes and we'll take questions here in New York City.
Q.When you open the bag, do you do it as soon as you go home, or do you just go ahead and do it in Scotland and do it for the whole team?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: I think that I'm going to wait and see. I would like to come home with a trophy and open up that bag with a little redemption. But that's the first thing that the captain told me was to open up the bag and get those dirty clothes out of there. I'm going to kind of see how the week goes. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll pack that thing over to Scotland.
Q.You also told us earlier that you had a superstition about touching a trophy until they actually belong to you. Have you ever laid your hands on that little gold cup?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: No, I never had. I'm petrified of touching that thing right now. I'm going to hold off and hopefully on Sunday, we'll all be able to touch it and get a little redemption. I really just look forward to having the chance to hold it and to win it.
Q.You talked about the emotions of getting the phone call from Tom. How would you compare that to anything you've experienced in golf, winning a major?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: You know, it was nothing like I've ever experienced. It was so emotional. I invested so much time. I want to thank the captain; I'll be able to finally get a good night's sleep for the first time in about five months.
It was just a time where I never if he had told me I wasn't going to be picked, I would have 100% understood because of how great every American is playing right now.
And so when he told me I was picked, it was months and years of emotion that kind of came out, and it was fun to share it with Jillian because she has told me that she was holding it in, too. It was just a moment that was very special and one of the best moments of my career to be honest with you, because it was scary.
Q.Why is making the Ryder Cup so special for you?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: Yeah, it's amazing. We play all year for all this money and all this fame and all these amazing trophies of history but the Ryder Cup has such a force to it. It's something that it's unexplainable to everybody. To be part of that team and be in the team room and have a captain like Tom Watson, it's something that can't be put into words.
Especially what happened last year in Chicago, I think we got a big majority of the guys on the team that were there and experienced that, and to think that I wouldn't have a chance or a little sayso in what happened in Scotland would have been really, really tough. Ryder Cup just has this pull. It's amazing; it can make you do some crazy things. But it's an amazing event.
JULIUS MASON: This will be Keegan's second Ryder Cup Team. He was 310 at Medinah.
Q.I wanted to ask you, as Tom watt sop talked about, you went to Gleneagles and played the golf course, and even though Tom didn't say it, I think he was impressed with the way you did play the golf course. Do you think that maybe your game is an advantage at Gleneagles?
KEEGAN BRADLEY: Well, yeah, it didn't help playing with you. You kind of showed me some bad spots out there. But the golf course is very much designed for a player that can smash it over bunkers and a lot of holes with driver. It's going to be a lot of birdies being made, drivable par 4s, reachable par 5s.
So I think there's an advantage to somebody that can hit it high and far. We have got a lot of those players on this American team. I think this is a very strong team top to bottom, and the other two picks are going to complement everybody a lot.
JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much for joining us today. You're World Ranked No. 23 and I think you have to try to figure out what you want to get Captain Watson for his 65th birthday in a couple of days.
Captain, we'll come back to you and we'd like to hear what your thoughts are on your second captain's selection.
TOM WATSON: Thanks, Julius. One of the things that you look for in a Ryder Cup player is how do they play match play. Well, the second player has a pretty darned good record in match play. If you look at the Accenture World Match Play, Hunter Mahan has really shined. He's always been there, I think in the top three or top five in the last four years. So match play teams to be his forte.
Going into the Ryder Cup, match play is a little different than medal play. You have somebody who can understand how to play not only the course but the player. That's an advantage. Some people, they don't shine in match play but Hunter Mahan is that person.
Hunter also has had a wonderful stretch of golf recently. If you look at the statistics, and God, I've been looking at these darned statistics for a long time but the statistics that really pop out about Hunter is that he led greens in regulation in three of the last four tournaments he played in. He is really, really a great ballstriker, and he's coming into his own right now. He struggled earlier this year but he is really starting to play some great golf.
I fully expect him to be there. And Hunter, don't worry, you're probably going to go five.
JULIUS MASON: Hunter, congratulations and welcome to your third Ryder Cup Team. You, as well, we would like to know what that phone call was like for you when you picked up the call.
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, like Keegan said, you're nervous. There's a lot of great players who could have made this team. You really have no idea. You really don't know. You're hoping for the best.
He sent me a text while I was on a flight here and as soon as I landed, I walked off the plane and made a phone call and was able to talk to him. He immediately said, "Welcome to the Ryder Cup team," and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I could finally breathe again normally and go to sleep. It feels amazing because this is something that I know these guys had a tough time at Medinah, and I had a tough time in '10. So we have a lot to play for on this team.
JULIUS MASON: We'll come back to Studio 8H for questions.
Q.Could you talk a little bit about where you think you'd be right now had you not won Barclays and what that meant to you?
HUNTER MAHAN: Obviously a huge, timely win. The game is coming around. I felt pretty good from the British on, and played well at Bridgestone and played well at the PGA. I felt things were right there for some reason going into Ridgewood. I had this calm over me and I had this great confidence. I felt happy with my game and I felt rested and I went up there and played well.
Obviously that was massive for my FedExCup and for making the Ryder Cup team and if I didn't win there, I would have had to play extremely well last week to be a part of this team. So winning is everything in golf and I couldn't have won a bigger tournament at the right time.