As Shane Lowry annoyed his Ryder Cup teammates in the European locker room this Saturday night in Rome, Rory McIlroy found himself getting angrier and angrier – to the point where he had to be dissuaded from going straight to the opposing locker room in a rash. try to clarify things.
In a recent interview with THE Irish IndependentMcIlroy and Lowry offered more details on the events surrounding McIlroy’s confrontation with Patrick Cantlay’s caddy, Joe LaCava.
“Here’s what made me angry,” McIlroy explained during his interview with Paul Kimmage. “My relationship with Cantlay is average at best. We don’t have much in common and see the world very differently. But when I saw he was getting stuck on the 17th and 18th greens, I tried to calm the crowd down for him. And I don’t think (Matt) Fitz(patrick) and I had the same opportunity to try to make those putts to halve the match. I made a decent putt, but basically under-read it, and Fitz made a good putt but left it short, right in the jaws. …I shook Joe’s hand and Patrick’s hand. Those three putts he made on 16, 17 and 18 were fantastic, and under that pressure, giving your team a glimmer of hope going into Sunday, those were big balls. So, all respect to him. There was a bit of argy-bargy at the bottom of the 18th green with Fred Couples and Thomas Bjorn — and that’s great — but as I go back to the locker room, I feel this red mist coming over me: ‘No.’ ! It wasn’t good.’
After Lowry had to separate McIlroy and Justin Thomas’s caddy, Bones Mackay, in Marco Simone’s valet line, McIlroy met Brooks Koepka’s caddy, Ricky Elliott, and instructor, Claude Harmon III.
“We arrive at the hotel and as you enter the lobby, we go left into our wing of the hotel, and the Americans go right into their wing,” McIlroy said. “So we go to the left and someone shouts to me, ‘Rory! Rory!’, and I look back and it’s Ricky Elliott and Claude Harmon. And they try to defuse the situation, but I start attacking them: “Joe LaCava was a nice guy when he caddyed for Tiger, and now he caddys for this dick he’s become…” I still wasn’t not in a big open space.”
McIlroy says he then spent eight minutes in a 6-degree plunge pool, twice as hot as Lowry, before later joining his European teammates in their team room, where the topic of conversation is McIlroy’s feuds at television with LaCava and Mackay. .
“Then (European captain) Luke (Donald) comes in and sits down and doesn’t greet anyone. And he looks at me and I’m like, “I might get in trouble here,” but he goes, “Rory!” I loved it !’ And all the boys started banging on the table. It was brilliant. It was a really deflating ending, but it galvanized the team.
Returning to his hotel room Saturday evening, McIlroy was greeted by a text message from LaCava: Hi Rory, I would love to meet up tomorrow morning to clear things up.
McIlroy ignored him.
There were also three text messages and two missed calls from LaCava’s former boss, Tiger Woods.
McIlroy said: “I sent him a quick message: Everything will be fine…long day…I just want to go to bed.”
For the full interview, Click here.
