Rory McIlroy Calls Ryder Cup 'Exhibition'

Oh, Rory. Just when you were starting to make people in the golf world gush over your curls and incredibly powerful golf swing, you go and do this. You have the PGA Tour and European Tour giving you whatever you want to play in their events, and you sit around dogging the Ryder Cup, calling it an exhibition. You can't do that because it bothers people. And by people, I mean golfers, and by golfers, I mean Colin Montgomerie.

All 19 years of Rory McIlroy made some comments about the Ryder Cup this week that have rubbed certain people the wrong way.

"The Ryder Cup, it's a great spectacle for golf, but an exhibition at the end of the day and it should be there to be enjoyed," McIlroy said at an Irish Open news conference. "I think if I get on it, you know, you enjoy the week, and if you win or lose, it's a great experience and you move on from it. In the big scheme of things, it's not that important of an event for me."

Doesn't McIlroy know that people flip over the Ryder Cup? Did he not remember when Phil Mickelson made club changes before the 2004 Ryder Cup and everyone bashed him like he was on the set of "Stomp"? Montgomerie, the European captain for the 2010 squad, made a pretty good point about the comments. He said that once Rory is in the moment, his entire thought process will change.

"Rory will understand when; and it's not an if, I'm sure it's when, whether it's this time or next time wherever it might be and he will be a Ryder Cup player and he will understand the pressures involved and the whole scenario of The Ryder Cup will hit him very hard, yes, and he'll understand having not played in it and having not attended The Ryder Cup as yet, in his life, and he'll understand what it's about when he's part of that," Montgomerie said.

The Irish Open is this week and as our perfect world continues to spin out awesomeness, McIlroy and Monty are paired together Thursday and Friday, so I'm sure captain and potential rookie for next year's team could have some heart-to-heart about exactly what an exhibition is. This is an exhibition. This is not.