NEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 Rory McIlroy has expressed a desire to be the European Ryder Cup captain one day \u2014 but not until \u201cthe mid-2030s.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy is playing his first tournament in India this week as he returns to competitive action after helping Europe retain the Ryder Cup by beating the United States in New York last month.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Northern Irishman has played in the last eight Ryder Cups and, as the world No. 2 and current Masters champion, figures he\u2019ll be in the team for a few more \u2014 not least in Ireland in 2027.<\/p>\n
But he said Wednesday he wants to lead the team some time in the future as the captain rather than its star player.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I would love to be a captain one day and I feel very fortunate that I\u2019ve had a front-row seat playing under some of the best captains in history in the Ryder Cup,\u201d McIlroy said, name-checking Paul McGinley \u2014 the winning 2014 skipper \u2014 and Luke Donald, who led Europe in the last two matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d he added, \u201cI\u2019d say not until the mid-2030s, hopefully, if I can keep playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy was on the end of a barrage of abuse from American spectators at Bethpage Black and occasionally gave it them back in a febrile atmosphere that ended up being the subplot of the week.<\/p>\n
He thinks that\u2019s a shame, especially since Europe went on to become the first team to win an away Ryder Cup since 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust 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,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cThe Americans would hit it close; we hit it closer. The Americans hole a putt and we hole a putt on top it and it happened every single time.<\/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
\u2018More international\u2019<\/p>\n
McIlroy has been keen to play in India for some time as he seeks to make his schedule \u201cmore international.\u201d In November, he\u2019ll play in Abu Dhabi and at the European tour\u2019s season-closing tournament in Dubai, and then at the Australian Open in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think over the last few years, I\u2019ve enjoyed it even more \u2014 I\u2019ve enjoyed the travel,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed getting to play in front of people that I\u2019ve never played in front of before.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a self-confessed cricket \u201csicko,\u201d McIlroy said he was disappointed he wouldn\u2019t be able to squeeze in attending a match in India\u2019s favorite sport during his trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to come back and do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 Rory McIlroy has expressed a desire to be the European Ryder Cup captain one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-216930","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\/216930","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=216930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}