The Spaniard was scheduled to play in this week\u2019s Amgen Irish Open at The K Club but withdrew before Donald confirmed his wildcards on Monday.<\/p>\n
McIlroy was asked about Garcia’s position and he didn’t appear to have too much sympathy.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I don\u2019t (understand),\u201d McIlroy said ahead of his 16th Irish Open start at the scene of his 2016 win. \u201cI mean, it would have been great for the tournament if Sergio played, but obviously, he was trying to keep himself sharp, I guess, if he did get a pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has the right to enter and pull out of whatever tournaments he wants to. As I said, Luke, has assembled a very strong 12 players, and I think the right 12 players, and I’m sure he’s disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you know, at the same time, I’m sure he wishes Europe well and wants us to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is just one change in the side that won back the Ryder Cup in Rome two years ago, with Rasmus Hojgaard coming in for his twin brother Nicolai.<\/p>\n
It could be argued that all 12 are far stronger players than they were two years ago and McIlroy believes Donald has the right mixture of players to grab Europe\u2019s first away win since 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire team has played some very good golf between Rome and now,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone like Rob MacIntyre, who’s won a couple of times now on the PGA Tour, had a chance to win the US Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think as well, speaking to the team, a few of the guy\u2019s games, or the profile of their games, if you look at it from a stats perspective, I think when we went to Rome, you had some guys that were purely foursomes players, some guys that were purely fourball players. \u2018I think now we have a lot of flexibility within that 12 in foursomes or fourballs to change the dynamics around a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the 12 that are assembled definitely offer the team a lot more flexibility than we had in Rome.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Rome worked out very, very well for us. But as you said, you could argue that pretty much every player in the team is is more accomplished than what they were two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Europe is likely to face a hostile atmosphere at Bethpage but McIlroy is excited about the challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m very excited,\u201d he stated. \u201cI’ve said this repeatedly, but I think winning an away Ryder Cup is up there with one of the biggest achievements in the game, especially nowadays.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a reason that every Ryder Cup for the last 10 years has went to the home team. You know that the home team do have a big advantage, from the setup of the golf course to how partisan the crowd is.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah, I think the Europeans have a wonderful opportunity this year to to achieve something very, very special, but it’s also going to be very difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a very strong team. They’re going to have a pretty raucous crowd on their side and on a golf course that a lot of them know pretty well from, you know, previous tournaments there.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake no mistake, we know we’re up against it, we know we’ve got a tall task on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump is expected to attend the opening day of the Ryder Cup and McIlroy has no doubt that will add to the partisan atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess all we can do is control our response and our reaction to it,\u201d he said. \u201cI watched a little bit of Novak Djokovic last night playing in his (US Open) match against Taylor Fritz. It was a very pro American crowd, you know. \u201cHe’s been the best at handling that sort of\u2026 he’s had to deal with it his whole life, whether it’s playing against an American in New York or playing against Roger or Rafa.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came and spoke to us a little bit about that stuff last time in Rome. So, you know, maybe taking a leaf out of his book and channelling that energy the right way<\/p>\n
\u201cBut again, all we can do is control our reaction and our emotions to it, and I think the less we play into it, the better it is for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for speculation that the Irish Open could be heading to Trump\u2019s Doonbeg links in Co Clare next year, McIlroy said he would have no problem teeing it up there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never played Doonbeg,\u201d added McIlroy, who will play a team event at Trump International Jupiter with Scottie Scheffler in December. \u201cI might have gone there for dinner once while I was down playing Lahinch at some point. But no, I mean, I’ve obviously heard the rumours. I’m not sure if it’s confirmed or not, or when the schedule comes out, but if it were to go there, I’d have no problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, the Scottish Championship was played at a Trump property near Aberdeen there a few weeks ago, and looked like it was a great event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going back to Doral next year on the PGA Tour. So if it\u2019s back on a links course, I’m not sure how Doonbeg stacks up in terms of other links courses in the country, but I’d be absolutely happy to go there and play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spaniard was scheduled to play in this week\u2019s Amgen Irish Open at The K Club but withdrew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-397092","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115145756212789836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}