Rory McIlroy knows the elation of defeating the Americans on home soil in the Ryder Cup. The five-time major champion has also felt the sting of losing a Walker Cup.
So it should be no surprise that on the eve of the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point, McIlroy, who was on the 2007 GB&I team that lost the Walker Cup at Royal County Down, sent a confident and motivational message to Luke Poulter and the rest of this year’s GB&I squad.
According to Golf Channel’s Brently Romine, players from GB&I received a minute-long video from McIlroy on Friday night, just hours before their foursomes match started on Saturday morning.
“As someone who played a Walker Cup and wasn’t able to quite get it done, and then to go on to play Ryder Cups and be able to beat the Yanks in their own backyard, nothing feels better,” McIlroy said in the message, per Romine.
Then McIlroy, who was part of the last Ryder Cup team to win on away soil — the 2012 European team that pulled off the “Miracle at Medinah” comeback — ended his message with a promise about the outcome of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.
“Please beat them because I know we’re going to beat them at Bethpage,” McIlroy said.
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The 2025 Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team includes Poulter, son of Ryder Cup legend Ian Poulter, and recent United States Amateur breakout star Niall Shiels Donegan. The United States team, meanwhile, includes World No. 1 amateur Jackson Koivun, Amateur Championship winner Ethan Fang and U.S. Amateur winner Mason Howell.
Poulter, a rising junior at the University of Florida, doesn’t remember watching McIlroy and his father storm back at Medinah in 2012. But as his love of golf developed, he went back and watched the comeback. That’s something he believes he’ll be able to lean on should he and GB&I need it this weekend at Cypress Point.
“The stuff [Ian Poulter] just talks about, because they were in a dark spot throughout the team and in the group they were down,” Luke Poulter said on Friday about the 2012 Ryder Cup. “Just like never give up; anything can happen. All you need is a little bit of momentum and the other team can get also back in a dark spot. We don’t really talk about it much, but in a moment like this, maybe it’ll come up a little bit. But I’ve rewatched it, the “Miracle at Medinah,” a few times to give me a little bit of inspiration to hopefully play like him.”
As for McIlroy, he and the 2025 European Team are three weeks away from arriving at Bethpage Black as slight underdogs to the Americans. McIlroy promised a win at Bethpage after the Europeans won in 2023 at Marco Simone in Rome. He hasn’t shied away from that belief and plans to put a capper on a historic season — one in which he completed the career Grand Slam by winning the Masters — with a win on Long Island.
“There’s a reason why every Ryder Cup for the last 10 years has went to the home team,” McIlroy said earlier this week at the Irish Open. “So we know it’s going to be very tough, but I honestly think we have 12 guys and the captain and the vices and everyone else involved, we’ve got all the ingredients. We just need to put them in the oven, and hopefully it all works out for us. I’m excited for the opportunity. I’m also excited for the challenge too. We know it’s going to be a very challenging environment to play in, but that’s what we want. The best players want to challenge themselves, and that’s what it’s going to be.
“When I look at my career and my whole picture as a golfer, I basically, I’ve done everything I wanted to,” McIlroy said. “I guess everything after that it’s a bonus, but you have to reassess your goals. The one thing for me this year to reassess my goals, an away Ryder Cup, after everything that’s happened this year, would be — I would look back on 2025, and there’s no way that I would — if I did have a better year in the game, I’d love to see it. But if we were to win an away Ryder Cup with everything else that I’ve been through this year, 2025 would be the best year of my career.”
