Playing Captain at the Ryder Cup? Rory McIlroy Says, "I Don't Think You Can Do It”

After skipping the FedEx St. Jude Championship last week, Rory McIlroy is back and ready to tee it up at the BMW Championship, the second of three playoff events. Despite his absence in Memphis, he still holds the No. 2 spot behind Scottie Scheffler in the FedExCup Standings. So, his TOUR Championship ticket is punched, he just wants to get some reps in before East Lake.

But with the Ryder Cup on the horizon, it didn’t take long for McIlroy to be asked about the biennial battle at his pre-tournament presser on Wednesday at Caves Valley Golf Club. More specifically, he was asked if he’d ever be a playing captain for Team Europe.

“No, I've been asked to do that, and I've turned it down,” McIlroy said. He clarified he hasn’t been asked to be captain yet, but said, “the idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon coming up has come up, and I've shot it down straight away… I don't think you can do it.”

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Of course, this is interesting because United States Captain Keegan Bradley is probably tossing and turning at night debating whether or not he should pick himself for Team USA. He’s without a doubt one of the best 12 Americans at the moment, and McIlroy agrees.

“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, and it's going to be—I'm just as interested as everyone else to see how it all plays out.”

When the Northern Irishman was asked to elaborate on why he doesn’t think being a playing captain at the Ryder Cup is doable, here’s what he had to say:

“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—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."

“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.”

For Team USA and Captain Bradley, the six automatic qualifiers become official on Sunday afternoon after the conclusion of the BMW—Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and J.J. Spaun have already mathematically qualified. After that is when the stress starts. The next step will be making his six captain’s picks.

McIlroy has been there and done that when it comes to the Ryder Cup—Bethpage Black will be his eighth appearance—so I believe him when he says it’d be very difficult to do.

We’ll have to wait and see if Keegs embraces the challenge.