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Mark Schlabach
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Rory McIlroy was approached about being a playing captain for the European team at a future Ryder Cup, but the reigning Masters champion said he turned down the opportunity because he believes a captain can’t do both.
Although McIlroy didn’t specify which future Ryder Cup, it was presumably the 2027 match between the U.S. and Europe at Adare Manor in County Limerick, Ireland.
“The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up, and I’ve shot it down straightaway,” McIlroy said during a news conference Wednesday at the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club.
McIlroy, ranked No. 2 in the world, has already qualified for the European team that will battle the U.S. squad at next month’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York.
U.S. team captain Keegan Bradley is 10th in the U.S. team’s points standings. If Bradley finishes in the top six after this week’s tournament, he’ll automatically qualify.
If Bradley doesn’t, he could use one of his six captain’s choices on himself. Bradley previously said he would choose himself only if “I feel like I’m going to help the team.”
“I definitely think he’s one of the best 12 American players right now,” McIlroy said. “That’s why everyone is so interested and it’s such a compelling case. I’m just as interested as everyone else to see how it all plays out.”
There hasn’t been a Ryder Cup playing captain since Arnold Palmer led the U.S. team to a 23-9 rout over the Europeans at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in 1963.
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Bradley said he still isn’t sure what he’s going to do. He hopes to play well enough in the BMW Championship and Tour Championship to crack the top six.
“[McIlroy] might be right,” Bradley said. “We don’t know. No one knows. I certainly have a lot of concerns, as well as everybody else, but I have the most incredible vice captains, including Jim Furyk, who’s been on these teams and been captain a bunch of times.
“Quite frankly, I’ve been leaning on them more than any other captain ever anyways — even if I’m not playing. We’re ready for this if it happens. I’m not sure it’s going to. I can truly sit here right now and say I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
McIlroy said he believes it would be too difficult to be a playing captain now, given all the off-course responsibilities a captain has during Ryder Cup week.
“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,” McIlroy said. “In Keegan’s case, preparing your speech for the opening ceremony. There’s a lot of things that people don’t see that the captain does [during] the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big.
“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.”
A captain would probably play only one session on each of the first two days because of other responsibilities, McIlroy said, which might affect a team’s ability to use its best lineup.
“Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well?” McIlroy said. “There’s a lot of different things that go into it. Look, it’s just my opinion, but I think it would just be very difficult to do.”
Ryder Cup veterans Rickie Fowler and Patrick Cantlay said Tuesday that Bradley is one of the 12 best American golfers and should be on the team.
Bradley won the Travelers Championship, a signature event, on June 22. He has five top-10s and nine top-25s in 19 starts.
“Yeah, I would pick him too,” said Fowler, who has competed in five Ryder Cups. “I think it would be hard to find really any or many Americans that would argue that point.”
World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler, who has already qualified for the team, said, “I guess you’re going to have to ask the captain that question.
“I think looking at our squad, I think we have a really good group of guys. I think Keegan can only help that. I think if Keegan wants to be part of the team and wants to play, I think he’s a guy you’d love to have on the team.”
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