Rory McIlroy with one eye on Bethpage as he plays Irish Open

Since The Open ended, Rory McIlroy has been singularly focused on one outstanding goal.

And now it’s just three weeks away.

McIlroy is continuing his Ryder Cup preparation this week with another start at home, this time at the DP World Tour’s Irish Open at the K Club. It’s the first of back-to-back events for McIlroy, as he hopes to lead by example for the Europeans as they try to win on foreign soil for the first time since 2012.

“I think the Europeans have a wonderful opportunity this year to achieve something very, very special,” McIlroy told reporters Wednesday, “but it’s also going to be very difficult.”

McIlroy, making his eighth Ryder Cup appearance, is the most veteran member of the European side, and he said that winning a road game is “up there with one of the biggest achievements in the game.” Between controlling the course setup and getting a boost from the partisan crowd, the home side has won the last five cups by an average of 6.6 points.

European captain Luke Donald finalized his 12-man roster earlier this week, bringing back six players from the victorious 2023 squad. McIlroy said that “love(s) the team that Luke has assembled,” with 11 members returning from the squad that won by five points two years ago.

Now it comes down to execution.

Justin Rose won the first FedExCup playoff event and Tommy Fleetwood closed out the postseason with his first career PGA Tour victory at the Tour Championship. Bob MacIntyre has kicked on since the U.S. Open. McIlroy himself, meanwhile, has won three times this season, but not since the Masters in April. In his last two starts, McIlroy said that he hit the ball poorly at the BMW Championship (T-12) and putted woefully at the Tour Championship (T-23), and now he’s looking to put all pieces of his game together with one eye on Bethpage.

“These are two big weeks to make sure the game is sharp, but I think the only way to tell you’re as sharp as you want to be is getting yourself in contention under pressure and the business end of things on Sunday,” he said. “I think it’s important to do that. It’s important to give myself a couple of chances to win.

“Ultimately, winning, that would be lovely, but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary going into the Ryder Cup. But it would be great to at least feel really good about my game and looking ahead to Bethpage.”