FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy will play for the visiting team this week, but he is at home. He is usually the most popular player on any course, but most fans here will openly cheer against him, and he looks forward to it.
The Ryder Cup does not define McIlroy, but it helps explain him. Europe’s best player is also its spiritual leader, the one who seems to find the intensity of the Ryder Cup liberating.
McIlroy grew up as an only child, not just in his family but in his sport. Even among prodigies, he was a prodigy. He has spent most of his lifetime trying to live up to incredibly lofty expectations that he knows, deep down, are fair. He really is that talented. He really should be one of the best players of all-time. Try sleeping with that under your pillow.
The most successful golfers can stand in a fairway, with thousands of people around them and millions paying attention, and think only about themselves. That has always been a challenge for McIlroy, and this says more about his personality than his values. His social awareness has no off switch.
That can be a problem at major championships. But it’s a strength at the Ryder Cup, where teammates compete for each other and emotional waves are part of the experience for everyone. He always thought of the Ryder Cup as secondary in importance to the majors until his first one, at Celtic Manor in 2010.
“I got into that team room at Celtic Manor and I just saw how much it meant to everyone,” McIlroy said Thursday. “I was like, ‘Maybe I got this wrong.’”
All 24 golfers here will shoulder a championship burden on every shot. McIlroy is used to that feeling. It’s an equalizer. Most players fear letting down teammates, and surely McIlroy does, too. But after all these years alone on fairways, trying to do what Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods said he would do, McIlroy seems to find comfort in being part of a team.
When he won this year’s Masters, McIlroy did not immediately promise he would win another. But as Europe celebrated winning the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy, he said this:
“I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup, and that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage.”
He has not wavered or backtracked in the two years since. In sports, proclamations like that can be suffocating, and if the Europeans lose, McIlroy will be the one to answer for his boast. But that means he is taking some pressure off his teammates and placing it on himself, and maybe that provides some comfort, too.
Over the years, McIlroy has sometimes said what he needed to hear and believed what he thought he had to believe. This means he sometimes contradicts himself. He said the Masters was the biggest tournament on Earth, but then Augusta National broke his heart a few more times and he touted the importance of non-majors. He finally won the Masters this year, and he started playing his old tune again.
Even before the U.S. had clinched its 2021 victory at Whistling Straits, a teary McIlroy told NBC, “I’ve never really cried or got emotional over what I’ve done as an individual. I couldn’t give a s—.” But when he was asked Thursday if the 2025 Ryder Cup has been his priority since 2023, he said, “You know, I think when you get swept up in Ryder Cup week, it’s easy to say that. But I still want to play well for myself. I’ve always said I’m proudest of my individual achievements in the game.”
He also said that “at times in the Ryder Cup, I have engaged too much with … the crowd. But then there’s times where I haven’t engaged enough. I felt like at Hazeltine [in 2016], I probably engaged too much at times, and then Whistling Straits, I didn’t engage enough and felt pretty flat because of it.”
Those comments might be revisionist, another psychological ploy: By saying he was too hyped in Europe’s 2016 loss and too flat in its 2021 loss, McIlroy has given himself a straight path to a different outcome. Engage the right amount, he can tell himself, and it will be different this time.
This weekend, two dozen golfers will hit the most pressure-filled opening tee shots of their lives. McIlroy can look them all in the eye and say: Welcome to my world.
More Ryder Cup on Sports Illustrated
Source link
