Ryder Cup captain never considered axing Rory McIlroy
Thomas Bjorn insisted he had faith in Rory McIlroy turning around his poor fourball performance and never had any intention of dropping the Irishman from yesterday’s foursomes at Le Golf National.
Europe’s Ryder Cup captain saw the world number six struggle yesterday morning in a misfiring partnership with rookie Thorbjorn Olesen as the pair lost 4&2 to Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. It would not have been a surprise if McIlroy had been benched for the foursomes, particularly after Bjorn had wrapped an arm around the four-time major champion after the morning defeat for a brief chat.
Yet Bjorn had been delivering a pep talk to his five-time Ryder Cupper and he sent McIlroy back out in a more familiar pairing alongside Ian Poulter with the pair contributing a 4&2 win over Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson that formed part of a big comeback by the Europeans to win the foursomes 4-0 and take a 5-3 overnight lead.
"That's unbelievable!"#TeamEurope pic.twitter.com/1kJTGBP5bi
— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) September 28, 2018
Now McIlroy will go out with another veteran in this morning’s fourballs after being reunited with Sergio Garcia, a 5&4 winner with foursomes partner Alex Noren over Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, as the European pair who played together at Gleneagles face Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau in the opening match of the day at 8:10am.
“You know, great players, when they don’t perform to the standards that they want to, they have an ability to just go and prove to themselves that they want to put it right,” Bjorn said of McIlroy, “and he did that this afternoon.
“He did it in a match that they got good vibes off each other and did well on the golf course, and they got off to a bad start (two down after three holes) and they turned it around.”
“I never have any doubt in Rory McIlroy, because if I start doubting him, then I probably shouldn’t be doing this job. I believe in him, and it was great to see his response today. But that’s more on him. I was never in doubt that I wanted to have him on the golf course this afternoon.”
Bjorn downplayed his chat with the Holywood star between matches yesterday, adding: “You know, the only thing I say to Rory is we go again, and that’s what we do. It was a bad morning. He didn’t play well, and you go again. You go out there and you bring a different type of game.
“This afternoon, he went out with a guy that he’s got history with; that they love playing golf together, so they went out and did what they can do this afternoon. That was great to see.
“But I made quite clear all along that I’m not in any way, shape or form qualified to tell Rory McIlroy how to play golf, but I’m qualified to lead him in a direction with the people he’s surrounding himself with this week to get good things out of him. And he is that guy that he only needs very short comments and then he goes again.
