Although players from Europe and America have never been closer in terms of friendships and their playing styles, winning the Ryder Cup away from home is still “probably one of the biggest achievements in golf right now” according to Rory McIlroy.
Winning the Ryder Cup on foreign soil has always been a tough prospect, with Europe winning four of the 11 played in American since 1979, while the USA have an even worse record with just two victories in 10 away.
The last four have been home wins, but the striking point is the margin of victories in those four homes wins, with two five-point victories followed by Europe’s dominant seven-point success in Paris and then a record 10-point hammering at Whistling Straits.
Teams change, and courses can be set up to help the home players, but that can only be a small part of things as McIlroy points out that most of the European players now operate on the PGA Tour along with their American counterparts.
Despite that, though, as America look to end 30 years of hurt in Europe, the Northern Irishman says winning a Ryder Cup on the road is one of the toughest things to do in the sport.
“The way the golf is going, the majority of the Europeans, we are playing the majority of our golf in the United States and we are playing all the same tournaments and the same course setups,” said McIlroy at Marco Simone Golf Club.
“We maybe grew up a little differently, and I think with some of the things that maybe the Europeans tried to do when we do have that home course, I'm not going to call it home-course advantage, but you can maybe tap into a little more of like how we grew up playing the game rather than how we play the game right now.
“Whistling Straits, you can't really set Whistling Straits up a certain way. It just is what it is. Yes, you can do stuff here and grow the rough up and try to pinch the fairways in at 320 so you're hitting more mid and long irons into greens and stuff like that.
"And that's all just looking at statistics and sort of seeing as a whole what the team does better than the other team.
“I think there's a reason playing, whether it be in Europe for us or in the US for the American Team, there has to be an advantage to that.
“That's why I've said this in the last number of years: Winning an away Ryder Cup is probably one of the biggest achievements in golf right now.”
With the course only offering minimal advantages, perhaps the home fans are tipping the balance, which McIlroy says is all part of the show, even if sometimes fans can overstep the mark in terms of heckling.
If asked whether he thought the European fans would go too far in Rome, McIlroy replied: “No because I think that's all part of the Ryder Cup.
“There's not a lot of other instances in the game of golf where that happens but there's certainly a line. Most fans that come out to watch golf are very respectful and they know what that line is.
“No, I have no issues about that. Yeah, we have all had our fair share of heckles over the years and whatever, and that's the a part of it. Someone said to me once, if you want to be part of the circus, you have to put up with the clowns.”
