Keegan Bradley was named as the United States’ Ryder Cup captain for the 2025 tournament, with the conversation now turning to who will be his vice-captain.

NBA legend Michael Jordan has been put forward as a shock contender for the role of Team USA vice-captain at the Ryder Cup, following Keegan Bradley’s appointment as captain for 2025.

Bradley, aged 38, was handed the prestigious role after Tiger Woods declined the opportunity to lead the team at Bethpage. Despite not being selected by former US captain Zach Johnson for the tournament in Rome last year, Bradley’s appointment isn’t entirely out of left field given his previous appearances for Team USA in 2012 and 2014.

Now, all eyes are on who will be Bradley’s right-hand man, with some unexpected names thrown into the mix. On PGA TOUR Radio, hosts Jason Sobel and Michael Collins discussed potential vice-captains, with Collins suggesting: “I think if we’re going outside the box, give me a college coach that’s not a golf coach or give me it from a different sport. Like back in the day would it have been cool to have Phil Jackson in the room. Would it be cool to have [Michael] Jordan? “.

The case for the Chicago Bulls legend was put forward, with the long-serving ex-Alabama head coach Saban also mentioned as a potential consideration. Sobel agreed, adding: “I have no problem with a guy like that being in the team room whether in an official assistant captain capacity or unofficially.

“Michael Jordan I would assume – Keegan and MJ play a lot of golf together – you’ll see some presence from MJ. I’ve got no issue with that, I don’t know about giving him the full captaincy but look, we’re going outside the box. The box has been broken, we’ve crushed the box There is no box anymore.”

Jordan, a regular attendee at Ryder Cup events, was present at Marco Simone last year when the USA suffered a damaging defeat. Prior to this, the six-time NBA champion gave a motivational speech to his countrymen during the tournament at Le Golf National in 2018.

 

Brooks Koepka described the scene involving the basketball legend, saying: “Michael was talking about how he would always play on the road against tough opponents or crowds that were always against him. ‘It’s just funny hearing a different athlete’s point of view or the way they would go about it, and then you can kind of take what you want from there.

“He talked about how he didn’t hear the crowd. I took it as he couldn’t wait to shut them up, and the second he would go off, the quieter they are [and] you’re kind of laughing inside [and] you’ve done what you wanted to do. I thought that was pretty cool.'”.

Rickie Fowler also reflected that Jordan spoke to those present “about some of the teams that were the toughest to play, the guys that he faced and who he thought were the toughest”, alongside “how he kind of went about home games versus away games” during the encounter.