Rory McIlroy doesn’t think it’s feasible to be a successful playing captain at the Ryder Cup in the modern era, and it’s why he’s as intrigued as anyone to how the formation of the U.S. team will unfold.
McIlroy said Wednesday he’s already turned down the opportunity “straight away” to serve as a future playing captain – most likely in two years’ time at Adare Manor in Ireland – because he believed the dual responsibilities would be too much to handle.
“The commitments that a captain has the week of: the extra media that the captain has to do, the extra meetings that the captains have to do with the vice captains, with the PGA of America, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony – there’s a lot of things that people don’t see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big,” McIlroy said. “If you’d have said it 20 years ago, I’d say, yeah, it was probably possible to do. But how big of a spectacle and everything that’s on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.
“Then the captain isn’t going to be on the course all day, so really the captain’s only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday. Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well? There’s a lot of different things that go into it – and, look, it’s just my opinion, but I think it would just be very difficult to do.”
And that, of course, is the complicated position that Keegan Bradley finds himself in for the Americans.
McIlroy said that Bradley, who was stunningly named as the U.S. captain last summer, is “definitely” one of the 12 best American players right now. Bradley is currently No. 10 in the team standings, on the strength of his victory in June at the Travelers Championship (when McIlroy was grouped with him during the first two rounds), heading into the final week of automatic qualifying. If Bradley is on the 12-man roster, Team USA has already said it will employ a captain-by-committee approach, with the vice captains assuming more responsibilities.
Earlier this week, both Patrick Cantlay and Rickie Fowler voiced their support for a potential Bradley playing captaincy.
“I don’t think you’re going to find any or many Americans that are going to argue that he shouldn’t be on the team,” Fowler said.
Bradley, who at No. 14 in the FedExCup standings is assured of playing next week at East Lake, will make his six captain’s picks following the Tour Championship.
“That’s why everyone is so interested and it’s such a compelling case,” McIlroy said. “I’m just as interested as everyone else to see how it all plays out.”
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