2025 Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald gave his opinion at the DP World India Championship on Rory McIlroy becoming a Ryder Cup captain in the future
11:08 ET, 14 Oct 2025Updated 11:10 ET, 14 Oct 2025
Luke Donald gave his verdict on Rory McIlroy’s future as a Ryder Cup captain
European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald is coming off a victory at Bethpage Black in New York and knows more than the fact that Rory McIlroy “loves the Ryder Cup.”
Donald and his team performed incredibly well during the first four sessions at the Ryder Cup, holding off a U.S. comeback attempt on Sunday that fell just short as Europe took the crown, 15-13, for back-to-back titles. At the DP World India Championship, Donald was asked his thoughts on what McIlroy would be like as a possible future captain.
“Well, just the fact that he loves the Ryder Cup more than anything. He made it quite evident that winning an away Ryder Cup would really be the icing on an amazing year that he had this year,” Donald said.
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“Yeah, he loves what it represents. You’ve seen the emotion from losing to winning. Anyone that has that passion for a Ryder Cup I think would make a good captain,” said Donald.
McIlroy’s passion for Europe and the biennial tournament showed greatly in New York. He was repeatedly taunted by fans and responded back to them, first verbally and then by flying back across the pond with the trophy. In a pre-tournament press conference in August, Rory said he’s already ‘turned down’ future opportunities to be a captain.
“No, I’ve been asked to do that, and I’ve turned it down … The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up, and I’ve shot it down straight away,” McIlroy said about his aspirations to be a playing captain one day.
McIlroy has been a key figure for Europe’s Ryder Cup squad throughout his career
But why?
“Because I don’t think you can do it,” McIlroy said.
“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.
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“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.”
