This Ryder Cup is all about 1 man

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy will have more Ryder Cups in his future, but they’ll never feel quite like this one. With Tommy Fleetwood as his steady alt-shot partner. With one of his best friends in the best-ball. With some of the ugliest things being cursed at him. With the entire European team looking to him for leadership. With his Ryder Cup foil, Patrick Cantlay, throwing haymakers at him as the sky turned orange on Long Island.

The 2025 Ryder Cup will be won by a team and of course it has 24 golfers playing but it’s really all about McIlroy and his two-year-old prediction from the victory press conference in Italy. It’s about his message to the Great Britian and Ireland Walker Cuppers last month:

“Please beat [the Americans] because I know we’re going to beat them at Bethpage.” 

That was more inspirational bluster than it was a Namath-style guarantee, but it still happened. And he knew it would leak out. He’s talked so much about climbing this team mountain that he’s made it somehow feel like an individual endeavor.

It was January in Dubai where he told Iain Carter of the BBC that he had just three real goals left in his golf career:

1. Win the Masters (check)

2. Claim an Olympic medal (see ya in 2028)

3. Win (another) away Ryder Cup

That wistful dream feels a lot like a warning now. (He’s 39% of the way to that last one.) 

McIlroy will be playing all five sessions at Bethpage, just as he has done for nearly every one of his seven Cups before this. He will be out in the second match Friday morning, alongside Fleetwood again, who seems happiest when he’s playing jockey, letting McIlroy buck his head toward the finish line. (They’re set to face Collin Morikawa and Harris English for the second straight morning, after dispatching them quickly Friday, 5 and 4.)

Every one of McIlroy’s teammates are getting berated at Bethpage, but none worse than he and Lowry, the Irish lads in the final four-ball match. And in fairness to the crowd, McIlroy has given them plenty of fodder. Some of it is listed above. There’s also his shortcoming at Pinehurst, where the U.S.A. chants felt like a preamble to this week. McIlroy chirped their king last month, calling Bryson DeChambeau an attention-seeker. He’s doubted their captain, poking Keegan Bradley toward the end of the PGA Tour season, seemingly daring him to take on a playing-captain role. And remember the Players Championship phone incident from March? He may have been in the right that day, and most of us may have moved on, but one spectator brought it top of mind Friday evening, basically spitting the details into McIlroy’s face as he walked to the 16th tee. 

That’s all to say nothing of McIlroys one-time divorce plans and their prompt nullification last summer. That wasn’t off-limits, no. Nothing was, particularly in the evening session after hours of imbibing. Whether or not that is your kind of golf tournament, it is only guaranteed to get worse, especially if the Euros extend their 5.5-2.5 lead.

It won’t help that for a brief few seconds as he left the 11th green, McIlroy cracked and seemed to flip off some spectator(s) who had gone too far. (And he wasn’t the only one.)

All of it works like a vacuum, sucking the attention inward. He poured in birdies on 16 and 17, his fourth and fifth of the day, forcing his second match to go the full distance and doubling the amount of spectators following outside the ropes. But just when you expected him to do it again — to drop one in from 13 feet, win the match outright and levitate straight to the team room, McIlroy missed.

He’s plenty fallible and plenty fantastic, and he’s who we’ll be watching all weekend.