Rory McIlroy Jumps Aboard His Incredibly High Horse To Shame U.S. Ryder Cup Players Being Paid

The 2025 Ryder Cup will be unlike any of the previous 44 editions of the biennial event. Not only will Bethpage Black, the well-known public course just outside of New York City be playing host for the first time, but it is expected that members of the U.S. team will be paid for their efforts, roughly to the tune of $400,000.

With the Ryder Cup having existed for nearly 100 years based around nothing but pride, honor, and bragging rights, you can claim that throwing money into the mix puts a black eye on the event. 

Given that only the U.S. team - the side often stereotyped as being filled with nothing but money-hungry players - is being paid, it has put a sour taste in the mouths of many.

Rory McIlroy, the face and voice of Team Europe, is one of those individuals.

"I personally would pay for the privilege to play on the Ryder Cup," McIlroy told the BBC while reacting to the report of U.S. team members being paid next year. "The two purest forms of competition in our game right now are the Ryder Cup and the Olympics, and it's partly because of that, the purity of no money being involved."

It's quite the statement from McIlroy, who early in his career said that making the Ryder Cup wasn't a goal of his as he called the competition nothing but an "exhibition at the end of the day." McIlroy also skipped the 2016 Olympics over concerns of the Zika virus in Brazil.

Rory McIlroy doesn't seem to agree with American Ryder Cup players being paid. (Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images)

Like most, McIlroy's opinion has changed over the years. He has matured and, having been a part of multiple Ryder Cups and played in the Olympics, his perspective has changed. 

Criticizing McIlroy for changing his opinion of the Ryder Cup is not warranted. After all, he is a person. People see things, experience things, and form new opinions. 

What the four-time major winner can be criticized for, however, is the line he gave after he claimed he would pay to play in the Ryder Cup.

"The Ryder Cup is so much more than that, especially to the Europeans and to this tour," he said, referencing U.S. team members being paid and the DP World Tour.

There is obviously a cultural difference between not only Americans and Europeans in general, but even among the 12-player teams that make up the U.S. and Team Europe Ryder Cup teams. It's not stereotyping a continent's worth of people to say that Europeans are more rooted in history because they literally have more of it than Americans.

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While we can acknowledge a cultural difference - and also admit Team Europe's culture has certainly been stronger than that of the U.S. team - McIlroy's claim that the Ryder Cup means more to his side because some American players want to be paid for their efforts is a tough opinion to get behind.

Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, and the rest of the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team didn't get embarrassed in Italy because their minds were focused on collecting a paycheck instead of beating Team Europe. 

Rory McIlroy's claim about American golfers is out of touch. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

I can accept the idea that the Ryder Cup may mean "so much more" to European players throughout their careers. However, it means just as much to the U.S. team and its fans when the event rolls around every other year, and it's time to put a peg in the ground. 

Players on the U.S. team being paid won't hurt the team's desire to defeat Team Europe. In fact, you could argue any distractions there may have been surrounding the topic are now gone. U.S. Ryder Cup players potentially being paid has been a talking point for decades, even Tiger Woods expressed his desire for players to be paid in 1999.

As for McIlroy, he's earned the right to speak for Team Europe as a whole, but if he doesn't think plenty of his teammates in both the past and future wanted to get paid for competing in the Ryder Cup then he's not living in reality.

Then again, he's not really living in reality, at least not one most know. He's made $91 million on the PGA Tour alone, he may not care about a $400,000 paycheck to play in the "exhibition," but others sure do.