Erica McIlroy was struck by a tossed beer can during the Saturday action in New York and her husband was the subject of sustained abuse throughout the three days of the competition.<\/p>\n
“I take it as a compliment that they targeted me,” McIlroy said. “But then at the same time, it was a tough week. That made us better as a team.<\/p>\n
“It galvanised us and it really put our arms around each other.”<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Northern Irishman partnered former Open champion Shane Lowry on both the Friday and Saturday afternoons when the crowds were at their most hostile.<\/p>\n
Lowry went on to hole the putt that ensured Europe could not be beaten despite America’s stirring fightback in the final day singles.<\/p>\n
“Honestly, I was just so happy to have Shane beside me on Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. He was like the big brother I never had out there those two afternoons,” added McIlroy.<\/p>\n
“He played incredible golf to keep us in it. And we won one and a half points out of our two matches. Him holing that putt was just a perfect way to end the week.”<\/p>\n
McIlroy has stated he does not want the crowd scenes to overshadow Europe’s brilliant performance, particularly in the foursomes and fourball sessions.<\/p>\n
He can look back on what he calls “the season of his golfing life”, which brought a long-awaited career grand slam with his Masters triumph as well as victories at the Players Championship, Pebble Beach and the Irish Open.<\/p>\n
McIlroy is now targeting success here in Abu Dhabi as well as the season finale at next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.<\/p>\n
He is in pole position for a seventh Race to Dubai title but holds only a narrow lead in the standings over England’s Marco Penge.<\/p>\n
“I remember trying to win my first race to Dubai in 2009 and going up against Lee Westwood for those last couple of events,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
“I was motivated and hungry and really wanted to do it and I’m sure that’s exactly how Marco feels. So it’s going to be an exciting couple of weeks.”<\/p>\n
On his return to the Middle East, McIlroy is in a reflective mood after so much success in a year that began in the United Arab Emirates at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic.<\/p>\n
“I think back to the start in January of 2025 when I was last here and everything that’s happened since,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Honestly, in my wildest dreams, I didn’t know. I mean, I knew a year like this was possible but it’s just been an amazing 10 months.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erica McIlroy was struck by a tossed beer can during the Saturday action in New York and her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-245682","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\/245682","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=245682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}