On Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour announced that Brandt Snedeker (USA) and Geoff Ogilvy (International) would be the captains for the 2026 edition of the Presidents Cup, to be held at Medinah No. 3 outside Chicago. For the U.S. this signifies the re-establishment of a captaincy pipeline that seemed to vanish with the selection of Keegan Bradley as 2025 Ryder Cup captain. Snedeker, in his press conference, extolled the value of the experience he embodies—he served as an assistant captain at Royal Montreal last fall and is one of Bradley’s vice captains for Bethpage this year.

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His selection also resuscitated an interesting question: What happens if Bradley, currently ranked 19th in the world, makes the Ryder Cup team as a player? He’s not very close in the Ryder Cup standings, sitting in 22nd place, but the U.S. will lack experience this year outside of its top six, and based on Bradley’s solid form this year—two top-10s and six top-25s in 10 starts—and how he played at the Presidents Cup, where he won two matches and clinched the winning point, it’s not at all unlikely that he’ll start to look more valuable as a player than a captain.

What happens then? Does Snedeker’s new job as Presidents Cup captain make him the presumptive substitute for the Ryder Cup too? When asked on Tuesday, the first words out of Snedeker’s mouth were slightly surprising.

“With regards to Keegan playing, I think everybody on the team wants Keegan to play great and make the team,” he said. “I think that’s something that the players have spoken about quite openly that they think Keegan is one of the 12 best players in the world now on the American side, and he needs to go prove that and play great leading up to the majors in the summer.”

It’s interesting to hear Snedeker (and others) pulling for what seems like the most chaotic possibility, and segued nicely into the obvious next question: What’s Plan B?

“With regards to who would be the captain in that scenario, we have four other guys in the room right now that are perfectly capable of it, and I’m sure there will be some collaboration between all of us to take over that role for Keegan even though this is going to be Keegan’s team,” Snedeker said. “Our job as assistant captains will be to make sure that we carry out his wishes and carry out the team thing the way he wants it done.”

If what he says is true, it would be a remarkable development: captain by committee. Whether this is the actual concrete plan, or just Snedker’s projection of what might happen … well, that’s not entirely transparent yet.

What is crystal clear, though, even months out, is that there’s little appetite for Bradley to assume a player-captain role.

“I don’t think it’s possible to be able to do both just with how much stuff goes into being a captain,” Snedker said. “I think Keegan will probably lean on Jim [Furyk], obviously, who’s going to be in that room as well. There’s a bunch of guys that can step up and hopefully fill that void.”

Again, a lot can change between now and then, but for those of us wondering what might transpire if Bradley played, it seems like we have our first hint of an answer: He remains “captain” in title only, with his actual duties shared between vice captains Furyk, Snedker, Kevin Kisner and Webb Simpson. Would that be a stroke of genius? Would it leave the U.S. rudderless? So much has to happen before any of this becomes a possibility, but hey, it’s the Ryder Cup, and nothing is quite as fun as the speculation.

Main Image:Ben Jared