Asked during his pre-tournament press conference if he aspires to be a playing captain one day, McIlroy said, “No, I’ve been asked to do that, and I’ve turned it down … The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up, and I’ve shot it down straight away.”
Why?
“Because I don’t think you can do it,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy did not disclose which Ryder Cup the offer was extended for, though the 2027 Ryder Cup will be played at Adare Manor in Ireland.
The comments came over a year after McIlroy initially shot the idea down during the 2024 Genesis Scottish Open, but the topic of a possible playing captain has reached a fever pitch early this week at the BMW Championship, as U.S. Captain Keegan Bradley will need to decide whether he wants to take on the dual role. Bradley is currently 10th in the Ryder Cup points list and has openly pondered the possibility. The top six automatic qualifiers for the U.S. Team will be determined after this week’s BMW Championship, with the captain’s picks to follow shortly after the TOUR Championship.
Americans Rickie Fowler and Patrick Cantlay voiced confidence in Bradley’s ability to take on the role, both saying they believe Bradley should play on the team.
McIlroy weighed in on Bradley’s decision, saying, “I definitely think he’s one of the best 12 American players right now. That’s why everyone is so interested and it’s such a compelling case, and it’s going to be – I’m just as interested as everyone else to see how it all plays out.”
Rory McIlroy on difficult finishing hole at Caves Valley
McIlroy, who will play in his eighth Ryder Cup next month, expanded on why he thought it would be such a difficult feat to pull off.
“I just think the commitments that a captain has the week of – you 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’s case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony,” McIlroy said.
“Just 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,” he continued. “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. So I just think for those reasons.
“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 that’s why I think – look, it’s just my opinion, but I think it would just be very difficult to do,” McIlroy concluded.
For that reason, McIlroy has already eliminated any conversation around himself fitting in the role.
