McIlroy picks West as playing partner

Rory McIlroy would share a tee with rapper, Kanye West, if any musician on the course could join him.

“I would love to spend four or five hours in his company just to see what he’s like. It would be very interesting,” the world number one told Billboard.

The Northern Irishman had One Direction’s Niall Horan on his bag at Augusta, and also played with the pop star at the BMW PGA Championship Pro-Am at Wentworth.

Meanwhile, Tom Watson has admitted Phil Mickelson’s comments after the 2014 Ryder Cup were “disappointing” and said they “hurt to a certain degree”.

“It was disappointing, but we got beat by the better team,” he told The Golf Paper. “Our team played its heart out, and, after getting off to a great start on the Sunday, if they had continued along that path we could have been right there at the end.

“We made collective decisions on who was going to play with whom. You try and pair the best quality team together, and I don’t really regret too much the teams I played.

“You can always look back; it’s easy now, but at the time it is impossible to make these decisions.”

The left-hander used the post tournament news conference to criticise decisions taken by his 65-year-old skipper.

Mickelson has since been named in captain Davis Love III’s six-man 2016 Ryder Cup committee.