Rory McIlroy changes his mind as he assesses Team Europe’s Ryder Cup chances

Team Europe’s chances of regaining the Ryder Cup from the USA have increased considerably, according to Rory McIlroy. In just over three weeks’ time, the 44th edition of the biannual golfing event will get underway at Rome’s Marco Simone Golf & Country Club with the European side still feeling the pain of a humiliating defeat on the other side of the Atlantic two years ago.

Padraig Harrington’s team were given a masterclass in match play golf by the Americans at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, with the hosts enjoying an emphatic 19-9 victory.

Now it is the turn of Luke Donald to try and wrestle back the trophy on Italian soil, but with the US producing so many top-quality players, the task is a difficult one for the European captain.

His 12-man team will be led by wolrd No. 2 McIlroy and the Northern Irishman is feeling confident about Europe’s chances, even though that wasn’t the case nine months ago.

Speaking to BBC Sport Northern Ireland ahead of this week’s Irish Open, he said: “I think it’s a really good team. If you had asked me at the start of the year what I thought our chances were, I thought we were going to have a really tough time.

“But the closer we got to the cup, the more I’m liking what the team has become and the way that everyone is playing. I think we’re in a really good spot heading to Rome.”

The golf season has been somewhat overshadowed by the fall-out of relations between the PGA tour and the breakaway tour LIV Golf, with an agreed ‘merger’ doing little to improve relations between the two rival operations.

Only one LIV golfer – the USA’s Brooks Koepka – will be involved in this year’s Ryder Cup, but McIlroy believes that all the comotion around the current politics in golf will be forgotten when the high-octane tournament gets underway.

McIlroy said: “It’s all noise at the end of the day and once the team is selected and the captains and vice-captains are happy with who they have on both sides, it’s just a matter of going out there and see who plays best. There’s a few tournaments that we play that are sort of bigger than a lot of the stuff that’s going on and the Ryder Cup is obviously one of them. I can’t wait to be there and hopefully, the outcome is different to last time.”

Team Europe captain Donald insisted that he would select a team based on form not sentiment and he has stayed true to his word by selecting three debutants in the form of Sepp Straka, Nicolai Hojgaard and Ludvig Aberg.

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The pick of Aberg is the most intriguing, as the Swede only turned professional three months ago, but has already secured his first tour title, winning the European Masters last weekend.

But far from considering the selection of the 23-year-old as a risk, McIlory is impressed with what Aberg, who predominantly plays on the US-based PGA Tour, has already done in the game and believes that the rookie can make a huge impact in Rome.

McIlory said: “There were a few of us who were saying that it was a no-brainer but people hadn’t seen him play in Europe and then he comes over and finishes fourth in Czech and wins in Switzerland.

“The people over here who maybe were a little bit sceptical about it all realised what the hype was all about. He’s an unbelievable player. He’s probably got one of my favourite swings in the world.

“It was always going to be a transitional time for Team Europe. Someone like Ludvig and Nicolai and Bob MacIntyre – I think it’s great to have them on the team because it injects a really fresh, youthful exuberance into the whole dynamic of the week, which is really cool.”

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