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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – A year before making his Ryder Cup debut, Rory McIlroy called the tournament “an exhibition” that he would not be “running around fist-pumping for.”
Well, he’s done much more than fist-pump. In 2016, every putt was like he had scored a touchdown, and five years later, tears flowed amid a brutal loss at Whistling Straits.
McIlroy reiterated to reporters on Thursday that he will always be “proudest of my individual achievements in the game,” but in that famous emotional plea in 2021, he said he had never gotten emotional about personal achievements (that is, until this year’s Masters).
It’s been quite a 180-degree turn for McIlroy, and he revisited when he admitted to himself he was “wrong.”
And it did not take too long for him to realize.
“I think it’s more the behind-the-scenes stuff. The team room, the team talks. I think for me, going in as a complete rookie – look, I watched Ryder Cups growing up. I cried whenever America won at Brookline. Like it’s not as if I didn’t feel something when I watched Ryder Cups,” McIlroy said.
“I got into that team room at Celtic Manor and I just saw how much it meant to everyone. I sort of started, I was like, maybe I got this wrong… I remember Seve [Ballesteros] was sick, and we had him on one of those conference call things back in the day. He’s speaking to the team, and we’re all in the team room. This is on the Wednesday or Thursday night. And I look around and the majority of the team is crying as Seve is talking to us.
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“And I’m like, that’s it. That’s the embodiment of what the European Ryder Cup Team is. I think that was the moment, that conference call with Seve in 2010, was the moment for me.”
Ballesteros played a key role in what the Ryder Cup is today. The tournament had initially been between just the USA and Great Britain/Ireland, but it expanded to include all of Europe in 1979, making Ballesteros and other golf legends eligible.
Ballesteros died less than one year after that 2010 Ryder Cup, and Europe retained the Cup with a dramatic Sunday comeback in 2012 at Medinah, the first since the Spaniard’s death.
Oh, and those pinkish-purple shirts the Europeans wore during that comeback? They made their return on Thursday.
“It’s nice,” McIlroy said. “It’s nice.”
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