On paper,\u00a0the European team heading to New York\u00a0to defend the Ryder Cup could hardly be more similar to\u00a0the winning lineup two years ago.<\/p>\n
Look closer and plenty of things are different.<\/p>\n
Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have moved to LIV Golf. Bob MacIntyre, a rookie in Rome, is now among the world\u2019s top 10 players. Viktor Hovland has remodelled his swing. Oh, and Rory McIlroy has\u00a0completed the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
No wonder, then, that McIlroy cannot wait for next week\u2019s team practice trip to Bethpage Black \u2014 the venue for the Sept. 26-28 matches in the Ryder Cup \u2014 in a bid to rediscover the bond that brought the European team success in Italy in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think getting us all back together and building that up again is going to be really important,\u201d McIlroy said Tuesday, \u201cbut I think it will be easy when we all get together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like nothing\u2019s ever really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, for the Europeans, the Ryder Cup buildup starts at the BMW PGA Championship held at Wentworth this week.<\/p>\n
Eleven of Luke Donald\u2019s 12-man team will be competing in the event \u2014 Sepp Straka is the only absentee \u2014 and they\u2019ll meet for a dinner on Tuesday evening. The European tour have put the players in the same groups for the opening rounds on Thursday and Friday \u2014 Justin Rose with Tommy Fleetwood; Ludvig \u00c5berg with Matt Fitzpatrick; Hovland with sole rookie Rasmus H\u00f8jgaard; MacIntrye with Hatton; and McIlroy with Rahm and Shane Lowry.<\/p>\n
The 11 players will then fly to New York on Sunday evening after the final round, link up with Straka, and play practice rounds at Bethpage on Monday and Tuesday. After that, in McIlroy\u2019s words, they will have \u201ca bit of fun\u201d together for the rest of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could make an argument,\u201d McIlroy said, \u201cthat the 12 guys that we have going to New York are more accomplished golfers than they were two years ago when most of us were in Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n
While McIlroy is coming off\u00a0a win at his home event, the Irish Open, on Sunday, the BMW PGA Championship will be Fleetwood’s first tournament since\u00a0winning the Tour Championship\u00a0\u2014 his maiden title on the PGA Tour \u2014 and $10 million as the FedEx Cup champion.<\/p>\n
That’s at the back of his mind now, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are, like, firmly in Ryder Cup season and there\u2019s Ryder Cup all over the TV and I love that,\u201d the Englishman said. “I love watching that stuff. I love being part of the process now, that is like the team is set and the Ryder Cup is coming up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Sunday and next week, the practice days are a huge part of it … getting the juices flowing and getting together, it\u2019s the best feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On paper,\u00a0the European team heading to New York\u00a0to defend the Ryder Cup could hardly be more similar to\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-133344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}