Sunday, August 1, 2010

Rory Mcilroy will be the one to watch when next year’s Ryder Cup gets under way in Wales.

That glowing assessment was made by Henrik Stenson after he lost his singles match by one hole to the Northern Irishman in the Vivendi Trophy. That win for McIlroy helped set up a 16.5-11.5 win for Great Britain and Ireland against Continental Europe.

But Stenson’s mind was firmly focused on the big team event next year, the Ryder Cup. And the world No.5 says he’ll be glad to be on the same side as McIlroy at Celtic Manor rather than facing him next September.

“I think I proved to be a worthy opponent to Rory - but he’s playing fantastic,” the Dubai-based Swede said. “I would expect him to be on the squad next year.”

McIlroy won his first European Tour event at the Dubai Desert Classic earlier this year and has seen his world ranking rise to No.24.

Over the course of the four-day tournament he showed why he’s so highly regarded - contributing four points out of a possible five. And the 20-year-old was happy with how it all went for him at the biennial event.

“That was the match I wanted all week,” McIlroy said.“To beat Henrik here in the singles. He’s played a couple of Ryder Cups and he’s top five in the world, so it’s a nice feeling.”

Leading 12.5-5.5 overnight, Paul McGinley’s men earned the point they needed to retain the trophy when Sweden’s Robert Karlsson missed a six-foot par putt on the 16th hole to hand Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell a 3 and 2 win.

The continental side may have had the better of the last day winning 6-4 but GB and Ireland just had too much for Stenson and Co.

“Paul McGinley has done an unbelievable job this week, motivating the guys, keeping everybody in the loop, asking the guys where they want to play, who they want to play with,” McDowell said.

“We wanted to come here and play as a team and play together, and we probably had ten guys who were really good friends before this week and we really played together as a team.”