NEW DELHI — Five-time major champion Rory McIlroy has expressed a desire to be Europe’s team captain for the Ryder Cup one day, but not until “the mid-2030s.”
The 36-year-old from Northern Ireland is playing in the DP World Tour’s India Open this week as he returns to competition for the first time since helping Europe retain the Ryder Cup by beating the United States at New York’s Bethpage Black at the end of September.
McIlroy, who won the Masters in April to complete the career Grand Slam, has played in the past eight Ryder Cups — and at No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, he figures he’ll be on the team for a few more editions of the biennial matches, with the 2027 competition at Ireland’s Adare Manor certainly circled on his calendar.
Having previously said that he thinks the double duty of player-captain would be too much for anyone — an internal debate U.S. captain Keegan Bradley faced this year, when he might have reasonably picked himself to fill out the American roster — McIlroy said Wednesday he wants to lead the team some time in the future as the captain rather than its star player.
“Absolutely, I would love to be a captain one day, and I feel very fortunate that I’ve had a front-row seat playing under some of the best captains in history in the Ryder Cup,” McIlroy said, name-checking Paul McGinley — the winning skipper in 2014 at Gleneagles in Scotland — and Luke Donald, who led Europe in the past two matches at Italy’s Marco Simone and Bethpage Black.
“But I’d say not until the mid-2030s, hopefully, if I can keep playing well,” McIlroy added.
He was on the end of a barrage of abuse from American spectators on the Long Island public course and occasionally gave it back to them in a febrile atmosphere that ended up being the subplot of the week. He thinks that’s a shame, especially because Europe became the first team to win the Ryder Cup on foreign soil since 2012.
“Just over the last two weeks, being able to watch the highlights and just see, especially those first two days, in the foursomes and the fourballs how good (the) European team were,” McIlroy said. “The Americans would hit it close; we hit it closer. The Americans hole a putt, and we hole a putt on top it, and it happened every single time.
“The unfortunate thing is people aren’t remembering that and they are remembering the week for the wrong reason. I would like to shift the narrative and focus on how good the European team were and how proud I was to be part of that team to win an away Ryder Cup.”
As for India, McIlroy has been keen to play in the country for some time as he seeks to make his schedule “more international.” Next month he’ll play DP World Tour events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to close the Europe-based circuit’s 2024-25 schedule, and in early December, he’ll be at the Australian Open for the second weekend of the 2025-26 schedule.
“I think over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed it even more — I’ve enjoyed the travel,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed getting to play in front of people that I’ve never played in front of before.”
As a self-confessed cricket “sicko,” McIlroy said he was disappointed he wouldn’t be able to squeeze in attending a match involving India’s favorite sport during his trip.
“I’d love to come back and do that,” he said.