I’ll be Europe’s Ryder Cup leader, says McIlroy

Rory McIlroy is ready to step up and take a Ryder Cup leadership role for Europe at Gleneagles this September that befits his elevated status in the game.

This autumn’s matches with the United States will be McIlroy’s third, and like his last appearance in Medinah in 2012, he will go into the contest as PGA champion following his dramatic victory at Valhalla on Sunday night.

This time around, however, European captain Paul McGinley will have the services of a golfer on an altogether different stratosphere, a supremely confident back-to-back Major winner who now has an aura of invincibility around him, having seen off the world’s best golfers in three successive starts over the last month.