Rory McIlroy has spent much of the last decade as the emotional leader and constant on Europe\u2019s Ryder Cup teams, making his future as a captain an inevitability. He said on Wednesday, however, that it will not be until he\u2019s done as a player.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up, and I\u2019ve shot it down straight away,\u201d McIlroy told reporters at the BMW Championship outside of Baltimore. \u201cI don\u2019t think you can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While McIlroy did not specify what \u201csometime soon\u201d means, the 2027 Ryder Cup is headed to Ireland, not far from the 36-year-old\u2019s boyhood home in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
Current European captain Luke Donald is already repeating his captaincy after the 2023 success, but there\u2019s no obvious successor. The United States faced this situation after Marco Simone and thought outside the box, going with Keegan Bradley.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s created a dominant storyline for the U.S. team, as Bradley sits 10th in the current Ryder Cup standings and faces the quandary of whether or not to pick himself to play. He would be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely think he\u2019s one of the best 12 American players right now. That\u2019s why everyone is so interested, and it\u2019s such a compelling case, and it\u2019s going to be \u2014 I\u2019m just as interested as everyone else to see how it all plays out,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
The Ryder Cup has undergone dramatic changes since Palmer\u2019s days, becoming one of the most significant events on the golf calendar, with massive crowds and intense media attention. The captain operates as a head coach of sorts, leading his team throughout the week, while also serving as the public face of the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about the extra media that a captain has to do, you think about the extra meetings that the captains have to do with the vice captains, with the PGA of America, in Keegan\u2019s case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony. There\u2019s a lot of things that people don\u2019t see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cIf you\u2019d have said it 20 years ago, I\u2019d say, yeah, it was probably possible to do, but how big of a spectacle and everything that\u2019s on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy has not played since the Open Championship last month, including skipping the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs last week. It was a controversial move for some, which McIlroy seems to understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re trying to balance a lot of different things. You\u2019re trying to balance the competitive integrity of what the playoffs are, but you\u2019re also trying to keep the media-rights partners happy, you\u2019re trying to keep the sponsors happy. They\u2019re the people that are paying the big bucks to expect the big names to be playing in their golf tournaments, and that\u2019s a delicate balance,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n