{"id":206403,"date":"2025-10-17T11:26:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206403\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:26:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:26:18","slug":"id-love-to-be-ryder-cup-captain-in-ten-years-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206403\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019d love to be Ryder Cup captain\u2026 in ten years\u2019 time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy has said it will be at least a decade until he is ready to lead the European Ryder Cup team. <\/p>\n

As the star turn at the DP World India Championship, which also has Bethpage team-mates Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland and Shane Lowry in the field, McIlroy is being feted at every turn at Delhi Golf Club this week for his first tournament in the country. And while his pursuit of a seventh Race to Dubai title is in his thoughts, last month\u2019s events in New York are still being raked over.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, absolutely, I would love to be captain one day. Hopefully, that\u2019s not 2027,\u201d McIlroy, 36, who has previously ruled out being a player-captain, said. \u201cI feel very fortunate that I\u2019ve had a front-row seat playing under some of the best captains in history. Paul McGinley, at Gleneagles in 2014, was a wonderful captain and I learned a lot from him [but] I think what Luke Donald has done in the last two Ryder Cups has revolutionised the captaincy within Europe.<\/p>\n

\"European<\/p>\n

McIlroy, second right, next to Donald after fending off the American fightback last month<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time and effort and dedication that Luke has put into the last four years has been absolutely amazing. He has the 100 per cent respect of the entire team. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can be nearly as good a captain as Luke I\u2019ll have done a good job. So hopefully one day in the future, but I\u2019d say not until the mid-2030s if I can keep playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald is still to decide whether he wants to retain the captaincy for a third term, at Adare Manor in 2027, but with Justin Rose saying he wants to be there as a player and a string of names lost to the LIV Golf impasse, Europe is not brimming over with options.<\/p>\n

\"Ryder<\/p>\n

McIlroy enjoyed an emotional week in New York as he helped Europe retain the Ryder Cup last month<\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

McIlroy declined to be drawn into the fall-out from Bethpage, exacerbated by the PGA of America president making an utter hash of what should have been a simple apology for the crowd abuse directed at the Northern Irishman and others. Instead, the world No2 said he had enjoyed watching the highlights and marvelling at Europe\u2019s collective display in their 15-13 triumph.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Americans would hit it close, and we hit it closer. The Americans hole a putt, and we hole a putt on top of it \u2014 it happened every single time,\u201d he said, \u201cThe unfortunate thing is people aren\u2019t remembering that. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while every sport craves a new audience, McIlroy warned that golf needs to stick to its strengths. \u201cGolf doesn\u2019t need to be the NFL,\u201d he added. \u201cGolf is fine. You don\u2019t want your sport to be unwelcoming to newcomers, I absolutely get that, but you also don\u2019t want newcomers coming into the game and ruining centuries of traditions and values.\u201d<\/p>\n

The presence of McIlroy in India is more evidence of his long-stated ambition to be a more global player. There is $4million up for grabs, in a good field which also includes the 2023 Open champion, Brian Harman, and the US Ryder Cup player Ben Griffin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a chat with Roger Federer a few years ago at the end of his career, and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cEighteen-odd years into a professional career and to still be able to do things for the first time is something that excites me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has said it will be at least a decade until he is ready to lead the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-206403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}