Rory McIlroy said he wouldn’t be a Ryder Cup playing captain.
More than once.
“No. It’s been mentioned and I’ve just said, ‘No way,’” he said last July at the Genesis Scottish Open. “It depends — what do you want? If you want to be the best captain you can be, you can’t play. And if you want to be the best player you can be, you can’t captain. It’s one or the other. Especially with how big the Ryder Cup has become and how many things you have to do in the lead-up to the event, the week of the event.”
Why the thought then? Just days earlier, Keegan Bradley had been named the U.S. captain for this year’s playing of the biennial event — and, at the least, he’d have to consider himself for the team, if he’d show good form over the following 13 months. And he has. Which led to a follow-up exchange between McIlroy and a reporter at this year’s Scottish Open.
It was this day last year we were discussing Keegan and the Ryder Cup captaincy and you [said] that it’s impossible in this era to be a playing captain. Now a year on, it looks quite likely it’s going to happen.
“Hopefully it is impossible,” McIlroy said before laughing.
Ahead of this week’s BMW Championship, he then unsurprisingly repeated himself. He again said he’d been asked to be a playing captain and that he turned the spot down. He again said you can’t do both.
But, in an answer to a follow-up question, he defined why Wednesday, with four reasons.
1. The media
“I just think the commitments that a captain has the week of — you think about the extra media that a captain has to do,” McIlroy said.
How much exactly? Take just Bradley’s PGA Tour schedule this season. He’s played 20 events and has been interviewed by just print and online reporters 20 times. Then there are TV requests. And radio requests. And podcast requests. And Ryder Cup requests. Also, the extra press conferences the captain has to do during Ryder Cup week.
2. The meetings
“You think about the extra meetings that the captains have to do with the vice captains, with the PGA of America,” McIlroy said.
How much exactly here? Listen to this Bradley quote from May at the PGA Championship.
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“I think the hardest thing for me has not been thinking of the Ryder Cup when I’m practicing or my day-to-day when I’m home with my family. It’s constantly on my mind of how we’re going to go about doing this, the best way to go about doing this, how to run a proper meeting last week. I think that’s been the biggest obstacle is shutting that part of my brain off, which is interesting because, when I get inside the ropes in a tournament, it’s really the only time I can do that.
“Sometimes for us golfers, being inside the ropes is actually a peaceful place. I’ve had that at times this year, but there’s definitely been times where I’ve been practicing, and a thought will come into my head and I’ve got to write it down and then I’m thinking about it, and that’s a distraction. But it hasn’t affected my preparation or anything like that.”
3. The speech
“In Keegan’s case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony — just there’s a lot of things that people don’t see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big,” McIlroy said.
Really? Consider the speech of European captain Luke Donald at the 2023 event in Italy — which drew applause after he opened it in Italian. (You can view it below.)
4. The play itself
“Then the captain isn’t going to be on the course all day, so really the captain’s only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday. Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well? There’s a lot of different things that go into it, and that’s why I think — look, it’s just my opinion, but I think it would just be very difficult to do.”
For reference, three players in 2023 played in the maximum five Ryder Cup matches — McIlroy and Viktor Hovland for the Europeans, and Max Homa for the U.S.
And yet, McIlroy also said Bradley is one of the 12 best Americans, so, at a minimum, the discussion will likely continue until Bradley’s team is fully revealed on Aug. 27, three days after the Tour Championship. For his part, Bradley repeated Wednesday that no one can expect to be on the team unless they’re in the six automatic qualifying spots.
He also said this in response to McIlroy’s playing captain thought:
“He might be right. We don’t know. No one knows. Yeah, like everybody’s telling me to start the year that a player can’t be captain and have a good year. For me, I feel like this is one of my best years that I’ve ever had.
“One of the strangest things, what I’ve done throughout my entire career is really lean on other people for advice and calling people and asking them, how do you prepare for a major? What do you do with the last tee time? How do you deal with the media? How do you deal with corporate obligations? In this instance, there’s no one to call. So nobody knows how this could work.
“I certainly have a lot of concerns, as well as everybody else, but I have the most incredible vice captains, including Jim Furyk, who’s been on these teams and been captain a bunch of times. Quite frankly, I’ve been leaning on them more than any other captain ever anyways, even if I’m not playing.
“We’re ready for this if it happens. I’m not sure it’s going to. I can truly sit here right now and say I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have to look at myself just like any other player trying to make the team. I’m 10th in points right now, and that’s not sixth.”
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Nick Piastowski
Golf.com Editor
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
