Rory McIlroy is eager to shift discussion of last month\u2019s Ryder Cup from the dominant theme of unruly spectators to the \u201cincredible\u201d strength of Europe\u2019s display.<\/p>\n
Luke Donald and his European team secured back-to-back Ryder Cup wins<\/a> after reaching what ultimately proved an unassailable position within two of the event\u2019s three days.<\/p>\n The reference point for Bethpage Black, though, has been appalling fan conduct; including significantly towards McIlroy. The Masters champion\u2019s wife was hit by a beer thrown from the galleries<\/a> at one point, with McIlroy himself subjected to abuse throughout.<\/p>\n McIlroy\u2019s return to the competitive fold, this week at the India Championship, has led him to try to change the topic of conversation. \u201cI\u2019ve been following the narrative coming out of the Ryder Cup<\/a> just like everyone else,\u201d said the Northern Irishman. \u201cUnfortunately, I think it takes away from what we focused on, which was what an incredible performance it was by the European team.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I\u2019m playing my matches, I\u2019m focused on trying to win my point. You see that the other guys are winning their matches or they are doing well but you don\u2019t realise how well they are playing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo just over the last two weeks, being able to watch the highlights and just see, especially those first two days, in the foursomes and the fourballs how good the European team were. The Americans would hit it close, we hit it closer. The Americans hole a putt and we hole a putt on top. It happened every single time.<\/p>\n Team Europe\u2019s Rory McIlroy celebrates with the trophy during the presentation after winning the Ryder Cup. Photograph: Paul Childs\/Reuters<\/p>\n \u201cThe unfortunate thing is people aren\u2019t remembering that and they are remembering the week for the wrong reason. I 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 In the immediate aftermath of Europe\u2019s win, McIlroy insisted golf should be proud to seek high standards from competitors and spectators. Some believe this presents the sport with a dilemma as it looks to engage youngsters.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t want your sport to be unwelcoming to newcomers,\u201d McIlroy added. \u201cI absolutely get that. But you also don\u2019t want newcomers coming into the game and ruining centuries of traditions and values of what this game represents or what it upholds. I think there has to be a balance.<\/p>\n \u201cI certainly think that golf can grow but it can grow in a way where the people that are coming into the game still respect and acknowledge that this is a little bit different than maybe other sports. I say it in America all the time, golf doesn\u2019t need to be the NFL. It doesn\u2019t need to be these other sports. Golf<\/a> is golf, and that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love more people to watch golf. That would be amazing. But I would be more interested in getting more people to play the game, and I think when people play the game, then they learn and they can acknowledge what golf is, what it represents, and the sort of etiquette and the values that you need to adhere to when you play the game.\u201d<\/p>\n McIlroy has European teammates Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland for company on his maiden visit to India. Donald is also in the field, with the Englishman yet to decide whether he wants to captain Europe for what would be a third time, at Adare Manor in 2027.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what Luke Donald has done the last two Ryder Cups has revolutionised the captaincy within Europe,\u201d said McIlroy. \u201cThe effort and the dedication that Luke Donald has put into the last four years, it\u2019s been absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy is eager to shift discussion of last month\u2019s Ryder Cup from the dominant theme of unruly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-215358","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\/215358","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=215358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}