European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald has led an advance scouting trip to Adare Manor, the venue for next year’s competition against the United States, with four rookies among the players in attendance.
Following last week’s Irish Open at the Trump International Golf Links at Doonbeg, Donald arranged for 16 players to gather at Adare Manor – which is about 60 miles away.
The majority of Team Europe’s victorious 2025 Ryder Cup cohort are in attendance, including last week’s dominant Irish Open champion Shane Lowry, but a quartet of potential rookies in the 2027 edition also received an invite.
Spanish pair Eugenio Chacarra, who is a two-time winner on the DP World Tour, and talented 21-year-old Angel Ayora – who hits the ball a mile and recorded 10 top-10 finishes as a DP World Tour rookie – both got the nod, as did Alex Fiztpatrick and Kristoffer Reitan.
Fitzpatrick, the younger brother of 2022 US Open winner and four-time Ryder Cup player Matt Fitzpatrick, and 28-year-old Norwegian Reitan have both won on the PGA Tour this season, while 2018 Ryder Cup star Alex Noren and 2023 winner Nicolai Hojgaard were the only other members of the party who didn’t appear in the stunning European away victory at Bethpage Black last year.
Rory McIlroy didn’t make the trip to Adare Manor, and neither did 2026 PGA Championship winner Aaron Rai or Rasmus Hojgaard, but 2025 team members Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Bob MacIntyre, Justin Rose and Sepp Straka were all there, in addition to Lowry and the elder Fitzpatrick.
“It’s always good to see the guys and just check in,” Donald said last week ahead of the meet-up. “I haven’t played a lot this year. So much more ideal having those sort of face-to-face conversations, some have dinners, just catch up,
“I think that communication, that chat, just is beneficial in the long run. It creates some good relationships and good trust.”
Donald, who is entering his third cycle as European captain after inspiring brilliant wins in 2023 and 2025, played alongside Alex Fitzpatrick and young Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin for the first two round of the Irish Open last week to watch them in action close up.
He will likely pick another couple of Ryder Cup hopefuls to be grouped with at this week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, with the tee times set to be released later on Tuesday,
“One of the privileges is I do tend to, most weeks when I’m playing over here, get to choose my pairings,” explained Donald.
“I think Alex Fitzpatrick, obviously speaks for itself how well he’s done off the back of his win with his brother at Zurich. He’s really kicked on amazingly well, showing that his game holds up against some of the very best on the US tour. Tremendous strong finish at the Tour Championship.
“Tom [McKibbin] is someone I’ve played a couple times with before. Certainly I think he played quite well a couple weeks ago at the British Masters. Statistically, I think he’s starting to show some improvement. So I’m looking forward to seeing his game as well.”
