After Europe’s triumph in the 2023 Ryder Cup, Rory McIlroy said not having the “big personalities” of LIV Golf players on the team helped them to victory.
A year and a half later, the Northern Irishman has changed his tune.
Tyrrell Hatton, a temperamental and confident character, joined LIV in early 2024. However, still eligible to play DP World Tour events while appealing his suspension from the European-based circuit, the Englishman won the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday.
That made quite an impression on McIlroy, who expects to make his eighth consecutive Ryder Cup come September at Bethpage Black.
“(Hatton would) be amazing in New York,” McIlroy told Bunkered. “He’s proved that over the last three Ryder Cups. He’s a massive asset for the European team.”
There’s one slight wrinkle. It would be Hatton’s first Ryder Cup as a member of LIV Golf. LIV tournaments don’t offer world ranking points, so he needs to perform well in DP World Tour events and majors in hopes of automatically qualifying, or else Luke Donald can select the 33-year-old with one of his three captain’s picks.
“This week was massive for me,” Hatton said after his win Sunday. “I’ve still got the four majors to continue earning points for the Ryder Cup. It’s no secret that I really want to be on that team. I’ve automatically qualified for the previous three Ryder Cups, and I’d love to be able to keep that streak going.”
Should a third-party arbiter hear LIV players’ appeals of fines and suspensions from the DP World Tour before the Ryder Cup, there’s a chance LIVers could be ineligible for the biennial matches.
The big personalities McIlroy was referring to in 2023 were European Ryder Cup stalwarts Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter. However, Hatton, who destroyed a tee marker in Dubai, has been a part of two Ryder Cup wins and fits the chemistry in the locker room.
“(Hatton) does things his own way,” McIlroy said. “He hits the ball very straight. He doesn’t try to shape it really one way or another. Hits it really straight and it looks like he has his sort of systems and the way he practices.
“He does a really good job at that. He also doesn’t give a flying fig what anyone else thinks which is a really good attribute to have in the game.”
Hatton, though, isn’t the only notable LIV player who wants to make the 2025 European squad.
It almost seems inconceivable that Jon Rahm, who joined LIV in December 2023 and is also appealing his DPWT suspension, won’t be on the team in New York. The Spaniard, however, fully expects to be there.
“I don't know what’s going to happen in the future, but I can tell you my plan is to be on that team at Bethpage," Rahm said last week in Dubai.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Gives LIV Golf's Tyrrell Hatton a Strong Ryder Cup Endorsement .