More than three months after Europe’s big win at the Ryder Cup in Bethpage, the biennial event remains a hot topic of conversation.
Rory McIlroy recently visited the Podcast ‘Stick to football’where hosts Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Jill Scott, Ian Wright and Roy Keane peppered McIlroy with Ryder Cup questions for more than half of McIlroy’s hour-plus performance. And if you thought you’d already heard everything there was to say about the various events at Bethpage, here are 10 new pieces of McIlroy commentary from the group’s conversation.
The continuity of Europe
McIlroy explained to the group the importance of getting off to a good start in the team portion of the Ryder Cup, something Europe has historically been able to do. Neville wanted to know why.
“We have a lot of continuity within our team,” said McIlroy. “Same captain, same vice-captains. I feel like there’s a lot of turnover within the U.S. team year after year.”
“Over the years I would say that to win the Ryder Cup, Europe had to be more cohesive and more together because, on paper, [the Americans] are stronger, they’re deeper, all the way down,” he continued. “But we outperform our baseline pretty much every time we go out to play. Even more so this year.”
‘The worst feeling’
Sunday’s singles match was awkward for McIlroy, who played in the fourth match and lost to Scottie Scheffler on the final hole. The Americans came close to a historic comeback, but ultimately fell short.
“As an athlete, those 90 minutes when you finish your game and you see the other guys coming in and you have no control over the situation is the worst feeling,” McIlroy said.
Europe hoped for a record match day on Sunday
Heading into Sunday’s singles with a big lead, McIlroy said Europe hoped to achieve a record-matching winning score.
“[The Americans] beat us by a record margin in 2021,” he said. “So our thing was, let’s beat them by the same score. That was our motivation. Obviously that didn’t work out.”
Team Europe considered keeping their partners off the field
One of the biggest storylines of the Ryder Cup was the verbal abuse the European team endured from fans on the ground, particularly McIlroy and his wife Erica. When the topic of fan behavior came up during the group chat, McIlroy revealed that it was suggested that the team partners would spend time in New York City instead of on-site at Bethpage.
“We knew we were going to New York and we were going to get a lot of criticism, a lot of abuse,” McIlroy said. “I said, why don’t the girls just go to New York City for a week, have a good time and see you Sunday night? Because we knew what was going to happen.”
“But honestly, they said, no, we want to be there, we want to support you, which is really nice.
“My thing was I just didn’t want if one of the partners heard something they didn’t like that that would affect the mood on the team or in the team room, so I just didn’t want them to bring that into the team room at all,” he continued.
“And in fairness to all the women and partners, they didn’t.”
Bethpage’s ugly Ryder Cup was a feature, not a bug
By means of:
James Colgan
The crowds at Bethpage were the worst Rory has ever experienced
“In 2016 we played Ryder Cup in Minnesota, and I thought that was it [the worst]McIlroy said. “I compare this year to 2016, and 2016 was nothing compared to some of the things we heard.”
Rory expected more control over the audience from Keegan Bradley
“Keegan and I have talked about this,” McIlroy said. “I think you definitely have to play with home advantage. But I think during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the things we heard on court, there was an opportunity for Keegan or some teammates to say, let’s just take it easy on this, let’s try to play this game in the right atmosphere.”
“And some of them did, but obviously Keegan had the biggest stage of the week as captain, and I feel like he could have said something that Friday or Saturday night and he didn’t,” he continued. “But to be honest, Sunday was a little better, it seemed like the rhetoric had calmed down a bit.”
Ryder Cup Pressure
Is there more pressure in team events than in individual tournaments? Jill Scott wanted to know.
“Absolutely,” McIlroy replied. “And I probably struggled with that in my first two Ryder Cups. “I didn’t play with freedom because I didn’t want to make mistakes or let others down.
“It honestly took me my third Ryder Cup in 2014 to really feel like I could play like myself and not have to be afraid of letting the team down or, you know, because as an individual athlete you never really have that.”
Emotional aftermath with opponents
Is there any post-Ryder Cup feud between players?
“There’s going to be some cold weather for a few weeks or months after the Ryder Cup,” McIlroy said. “But I think because it happens every two years, we see each other every week, I feel like a lot of the bad things are forgotten. These are shared experiences and like, yeah, we have disagreements or there are things that I probably didn’t like, which some Americans did… I’ve talked to them about things before, saying, look, I really didn’t like what you did there, or, you know, whatever it is.
But that applies to all walks of life, you know, it doesn’t just happen to people you play against. You have to be frank and honest and at least open to communicating with people and saying, look, I don’t want anything like bad between us here, and let’s just figure it out and move on.
Fours strategy
McIlroy praised Luke Donald’s leadership and the analysis that went into the European team combinations.
“The most strategic golf format is foursomes,” McIlroy said. “And if you look at our foursomes record over the last two Ryder Cups, we’ve played 16 foursomes matches, and I think it’s about 13-3. [Europe]. So we kill them with that.”
Hitting the wall during singles on Sunday
McIlroy won 3-1-1 at Bethpage, with his singles loss to Scottie Scheffler on Sunday the only blemish on his record. Looking back, McIlroy said the mental fatigue of the week finally caught up with him.
“I felt OK, I would say for the front nine on Sunday,” he said. “And then I felt like I hit a wall. I completely lost the feeling of my swing.
“For example, I was trying to hit 15-foot fades. I was trying to hit it left or right, and the ball came out and curved 50 feet from right to left. And I thought, What? It hasn’t happened to me like that before.”
“You’re used to seeing the ball come out through a certain window, a certain shape, a certain trajectory, and this, I just felt like I was taking a swing to hit a fade, and that just didn’t happen, and at that point I just had to play with it.”
For more from McIlroy – including a deep dive into his Masters win and career grand slam achievement, watch the full episode of Stick to Football. You can listen hereor watch the episode below on YouTube.
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