Tom McKibbin hopes he can play the golf he knows he is capable of as he looks to impress European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald at the Team Cup in Abu Dhabi.
McKibbin’s maiden bow in matchplay as a professional has been overshadowed by bombshell links with a move to join Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team at LIV Golf next month but his focus, for now, is on representing Great Britain and Ireland where he will be a teammate of Legion XIII player Tyrrell Hatton.
“I’m excited. It was a goal of mine at are the start of last year to be part of this event. I haven’t played any team golf as a pro. I played a little bit as an amateur so really excited to be part of a team and looking forward to the week,” said McKibbin who will be looking to secure a win for GB&I vs Continental Europe.
The 22-year-old announced himself as a real candidate to qualify for the European Ryder Cup team this September when he earned one of ten PGA Tour cards available via the Race to Dubai last season and the Team Cup gives players an early opportunity to impress in a Ryder Cup style format.
“Yeah, it’s been awesome. I seen some of the clips before I got here an Instagram and I sort of seen what it’s going to be like but until you get here and see it yourself, it’s pretty incredible what they do for us, I mean, how well we are looked after and some of the stuff that we get is awesome. And yeah, just how good we are taken care of. There’s co-locker rooms and the team rooms and all that stuff. It’s hard to describe how cool it is until you’re actually sort of in the environment.”
Great Britain and Ireland will be skippered by playing captain Justin Rose while experienced Ryder Cuppers Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood will be tasked with mentoring some of the inexperienced players on the side like McKibbin.
The Holywood man will be in next week’s Dubai Desert Classic field but knows this is an early opportunity to get himself into the thinking of Donald already.
“I just want to try and play golf that I know I can play. Obviously it’s sort of the first event of the year. I just sort of want to go out and sort of been practicing quite hard the last couple weeks. So see if that translates over to my game and try to win as many points as I can.”
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