Rory McIlroy was honoured ahead of his first official press conference of 2025 in being handed the Seve Ballaseteros trophy by the Javier and the son of the late, great Spaniard.
McIlroy was handed the trophy in ending the 2024 season as DP World Tour No. 1 for a sixth occasion in his career, and one more than Ballesteros.
“I would say that the Seve Ballesteros Award is special, as well, because it’s voted on by your peers”, he said.
“They are the ones that have been out there on the course with you week-in, week-out, playing the same golf courses, competing.
“So to get their vote is very meaningful. And I said to Javier up here, the legacy that his dad left on not just European golf but global golf, I mean, it will live on forever”.
MY #2025newyear GOAL REVEALS @McIlroyRory …
To secure a first as a member of an away @RyderCupEurope team
Read: https://t.co/cstVsMuCfc
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✅ @TOURMISS pic.twitter.com/6RcdLiCMMJ
— Fatiha (@TOURMISS) January 15, 2025
And with Javier present, McIlroy was asked his thoughts in heading later this year to Bethpage Park where Europe will look to retain the Ryder Cup and, if successful, for a first occasion on ‘away’ soil since 2004 and Europe’s stunning nine-point triumph at Oakland Hills under Bernhard Langer’s captaincy.
McIlroy has now been a member of past seven straight Ryder Cup encounters, and will having celebrated five European wins, he’s yet to be a member of team to have triumphed outside of Europe
“Our whole motivation, our whole thing that we rally around on the Ryder Cup Team is Seve, and we feel like we have an advantage because of that. Because honestly, the Americans don’t have a character like that to rally around. So I think we’re very lucky that we’ve got Seve to do that with,” McIlroy said.
“And then to the setup at Bethpage, I would imagine it would be similar to the two parkland setups that we’ve seen — that I’ve seen before when we played an away Ryder Cup. So Medinah in 2012 and Hazeltine in 2016 where they will cut the rough down, it seems. You know, their players are arguably a little longer than us. So they are going to try to take advantage of that length.
“Looking at the stats, a lot of these things, the reason we set the course up and run the way we did is because we knew they were slightly better wedge players than us. So we made some of those par 4s that you would hit wedges into drivable, so we made them go for it. That’s the great thing about the Ryder Cup. You can do that when you have that home-course advantage.
“They are going to set it up to their strengths, and it’s up to us to try to beat them at what they are strong at, alongside dealing with the crowd and dealing with all of that that’s going to bring its own pressure. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult task.
“I think from here for rest of my career, one of my career goals going forward is to try to win another away Ryder Cup. I’ve experienced it once, and it was absolutely amazing. And I would love to experience it once again. And it’s getting harder and harder to do.
“We’ve got a great opportunity this year, and I think the guys that played the Team Cup last week really enjoyed some of the things that Luke was talking about. Yeah, we’re already trying to get prepared and get ready for the last week in September”.