Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Northern Irishman expressed his disappointment that the tournament did not align with any international cricket or Indian Premier League matches however, saying it will have to wait for next time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to go and see a cricket game. I\u2019d love to go watch a cricket match. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything on until next month maybe. I\u2019d love to come back and do that,\u201d McIlroy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I\u2019m a bit of a sicko. I love sitting down and watching Test matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be in Australia later this year, and The Ashes is going to be on. So that\u2019s something I\u2019m quite excited — I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be able to get to a game but I\u2019d love to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for McIlroy, the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne clashes with the second Ashes Test in Brisbane with both events starting on Thursday 4 December.<\/p>\n
The Gabba Test is a day\/night Test this year, however, meaning McIlroy will be able to put his feet up and catch plenty of the action from his hotel room after a round.<\/p>\n
More time in hotels appears to be on the cards for the 36-year-old in the coming years.<\/p>\n
He once again reaffirmed to reporters on Wednesday that he wants to play in more tournaments around the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say as time goes on, my schedule will get hopefully more international. Because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve enjoyed doing. I\u2019ve always said that,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think over the last few years, I\u2019ve enjoyed it even more. I\u2019ve enjoyed the travel. I\u2019ve enjoyed getting to play in front of people that I\u2019ve never played in front of before. But it does, it fits really nicely.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, because there is — I\u2019ll always go back and play The Irish Open and Wentworth in September, and then you sort of have especially in non-Ryder Cup years, you\u2019ve got some choices to make where you want to play, how much do you want to play, do you want to take some time off.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this event certainly fits into a nice part of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
NEW DELHI, INDIA – OCTOBER 15: Rory McIlroy tees off from hole 1 during PRO-AM prior to the DP World India Championship 2025 at Delhi Golf Club on October 15, 2025 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Prakash Singh\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
The host venue this week is certainly set to provide some unique challenges for the superstars that have descended on the Peter Thomson – the legendary Australian who won the British Open five times – designed course.<\/p>\n
Accuracy off the tee is the name of the game in Delhi with the course\u2019s incredibly tight fairways encouraging players to leave driver out of the bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say that the next time I hit my driver will be in Abu Dhabi (in next month\u2019s DP World Tour playoffs),\u201d McIlroy said with a laugh. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll hit a driver this week. I just don\u2019t feel like the risk is worth the reward. I\u2019d rather leave myself two or three clubs back and hit a 7-iron into a par 4 instead of hitting a wedge where if you just get it off-line here and the ball is gone. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re hitting it into jungle and you\u2019re not going to be able to get it out. You can rack up a very big number very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy can expect a far warmer welcome from the crowd this week than he received at Bethpage Black in New York during last month\u2019s Ryder Cup.<\/p>\n
The Masters champion was relentlessly abused with American fans repeatedly crossing the line with vulgar, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic taunts directed at McIlroy, and his wife Erica as she walked the course, watching her husband.<\/p>\n
McIlroy said that as time goes on, he wants to shift the focus away from the poor crowd behaviour and onto the Europeans\u2019 superb victory. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe unfortunate thing is people aren\u2019t remembering that (performance) and they are remembering the week for the wrong reason,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to shift the narrative and focus on how good the European team were and how proud I was to be part of that team to win an away Ryder Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
The topic of Ryder Cup captaincy also came up in McIlroy\u2019s press conference as Luke Donald told reporters on Tuesday that his top player \u201cwould make a good captain\u201d.<\/p>\n
McIlroy said in response: \u201cI would love to be the European team captain at some point.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that will be beyond my playing days, or at least when my playing days are coming to an end and I\u2019m not good enough to make the team or I make way for the new generation to come along.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully that\u2019s not in 2027.\u201d <\/p>\n
McIlroy praised Donald\u2019s leadership in the two editions of the Ryder Cup that he has captained Europe in. They beat the Americans both times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what Luke Donald has done the last two Ryder Cups has revolutionised the captaincy within Europe,\u201d said McIlroy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has 100 per cent respect of the entire team and everyone that\u2019s worked for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can be nearly as good as a captain as Luke Donald, I\u2019ll have done a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has declared a surprise bucket list item ahead of his trip to Australia this December, calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[944,2095,132136,1724,64,63,689,15814,651,132137,132142,132141,15201,84979,102760,114636,51340,51331,2105,755,29981,132139,46632,1209,13849,51335,41886,1025,2041,2067,677,132140,64326,668,701,756,11544,1656,12540,85,132138,6953,5338,42347,2614,12000],"class_list":["post-216108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-america","tag-american-fans","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ben-griffin","tag-brisbane","tag-bucket-list-item","tag-bucket-list-reveal","tag-cricket-game","tag-cricket-match","tag-crowd-behaviour","tag-dp-world","tag-erica","tag-european-captain","tag-european-team","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-golf","tag-grand-slam-winner","tag-host-venue","tag-hotel-room","tag-india","tag-indian-premier-league","tag-luke-donald","tag-new-delhi","tag-new-york","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-peter-thomson","tag-prakash-singh","tag-press-conference","tag-queensland","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-royal-melbourne","tag-shane-lowry","tag-southern-asia","tag-sports","tag-surprise-bucket-list","tag-tee-times","tag-the-gabba","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-western-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}