MASTERS champion Rory McIlroy revealed he has already “shot down” the prospect of becoming a playing Ryder Cup captain in the future.

The Northern Irishman, Europe’s leading points-scorer in their victory in Rome two years ago, said the idea had already been raised with him but he rejected it out of hand.

McIlroy, aged 36 and currently world number two, has plenty of time left at the top as a player, but it is a dilemma facing United States captain Keegan Bradley, whose form this year has elevated him to 12th in the world and 10th on America’s qualification list.

“I’ve been asked to do that and I’ve turned it down,” said McIlroy, who was the first player to automatically qualify for Europe’s team for next month’s event at Bethpage in New York.

“The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up and I’ve shot it down straight away because I don’t think you can do it.

“If you’d have said it 20 years ago I’d say it was probably possible to do, but how big of a spectacle it is and everything that’s on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.

“There’s a lot of things that people don’t see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big.

“The captain’s only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday. Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he’s playing well?”

Today McIlroy will tee off alongside world number one Scottie Scheffler in the Western Open at Caves Valley Golf Club outside Baltimore.