Rory McIlroy has admitted he’d pay to play in the Ryder Cup after he took a giant step towards his sixth Race to Dubai by firing a five under 67 to grab a share of the lead in the DP World Tour Championship.
Needing a top-ten finish to hold off South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence, who was tied 37th after a 73, the World No.3 was tied with Ryder Cup teammate Tyrrell Hatton, a shot clear of last week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship winner Paul Waring.
“It’s is a really solid start,” McIlroy said at Jumeirah Golf Estates. “I couldn’t have hoped for much more.
“Thriston didn’t have his best day. I fully expect that that’s his worst day this week, you know, so I still have to go out there and play very solid golf to get the job done.
“But, you know, I put my I’ve put myself in a position where I want to go on and win the tournament now, and try to end the season on a really nice high.”
As for reports the PGA of America is planning to discuss paying the USA Ryder Cup team $400,000 a head to play at Bethpage next year, he was clear.
“I personally would pay for the privilege” he told BBC Radio.
“I’ve talked about this a lot. I think the two purest forms of competition in our game right now are the are the Ryder Cup and the Olympics. And it’s partly because of that, the purity of no money being involved.
“Look, it was a discussion that was happening in Rome. I can see the other side of the argument, because the Ryder Cup does create, as you know, a lot of revenue.
“It’s one of the probably top five biggest sporting events in the world. So I get the argument that the talent you know should be or could be getting paid.
“But I just think that the Ryder Cup is so much more than that, especially to to the Europeans and to this tour.
“We’ve all had a conversation with look about it over the past few weeks, because we obviously heard, and I think the common consensus amongst us is that, you know, whatever that would be to pay the team $5 million would be better off spent elsewhere on the DP World Tour to support other events, even to support the Challenge Tour.
“So, yeah, I don’t think any of the Europeans who are players… I think for us, I don’t want to say, taints it, but it would give it a different feel.
“And I think what we’ve done a really good job of is, is being this really cohesive, collective group over the past decade, and we wouldn’t want anything to change that.“
Asked if one side getting paid might change the dynamic of the event, he added: “I don’t know. I honestly don’t think any of the 24 players on either team needs that 400 grand.
“I mean, every two years there’s 104 weeks and 103 weeks you can play golf and get paid.
“I’d say that’s reasonable enough. So again, it won’t change anything on our side.You know, it could look it could call into question. Obviously, there’s been conversation around how high the ticket prices are. Obviously the tickets are sold out, and that’s that’s great for the event.
“But if the PGA of America is looking to make more money out of the Ryder Cup, or the players are starting to be paid, that ultimately comes from the people that are paying to watch the event. So it’s a it’s a double edged sword.
“But again, I understand both sides of the argument, but I think the European consensus is that we, we don’t want anything to change what we have over here. So we probably, you know, won’t be getting paid for for Bethpage, which is totally fine.”
McIlroy admits that it stands to reason that players are paid for their efforts, as is the case in every professional sport.
But he fears paying players could change the dynamic of the Ryder Cup.
“Again, there’s two different sides of the coin,” he said. “I’m not criticising at all because if the Ryder Cup generates $100 to $200million in revenue, you would think that the talent should probably have a piece of that.
“That’s never been the way the way it has been. So I think, from a European perspective, we don’t want anything to change because of how good it’s been over these last few years.
“But I think it’s more than reasonable that if you put an event on and that event creates so much revenue, that some of that revenue should flow back to the talent, but it just hasn’t been that way in the Ryder Cup.
“So I just think it’s a massive change compared to what it has been. And as I said, every other tournament, we get a percentage of that revenue every 103 weeks out of 104 and you know, I think going back to that purity aspect.
“It makes the competition seem a little less pure, but again, it won’t change anything from a European perspective, because it seems like the common consensus is that we would all welcome money if it didn’t change the dynamic of what we had.
“But I think the money coming in would really change the dynamic of what we had. So that’s why everyone’s like, you know, let’s, let’s just not do that.“