19 Feb 2025
Billy Foster has backed Rory McIlroy to emerge even stronger in 2025 following his painful ending to the US Open last year in an exclusive interview with Genting.
The affable Yorkshireman also spoke up in defence of Tiger Woods as the greatest competitor he has seen during his time in the game amid suggestions that the American should begin to wind down his career.
He also opened up about working with Matt Fitzpatrick including their football rivalry as fans of Leeds United and Sheffield United respectively given Foster’s regular pilgrimages to Elland Road.
Read the full interview below.
How are you enjoying taking a step back?
I’m job sharing with Dan Parrott. Dan's caddied for about 15 years with the likes of Ben An and Thorbjørn Olesen and KH Lee. He's got a young family he wants to do a little bit less and I'm just getting ready for my bus pass.
Yeah, 42 years of caddying. It’s my 60th next and with all the transatlantic flying, you're walking the best part of 50 miles a week with four stone on your back and it's just catching up with me a bit. I just figured I'll just do a little bit less.
I used to be 6 foot 5 when I started. Now I’m getting down to 5 foot 7. I just figured I'd do about 15 a year and I'm still gonna be doing most of the big tournaments.
It’s given me a better chance to get myself a bit fitter. I might start playing a bit of golf again and doing things that you miss out on for years. if I don't like it I'll try and go back full time we'll see.
You know when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire and every day is grey and damp and miserable in January and February you're thinking, no I'm not enjoying this. I'm looking at the lads in Dubai and Pebble Beach thinking what am I doing sat here?
I'm going out in a couple of weeks to Bay Hill, the players, the Masters and all that, so it will be alright. I've not really enjoyed doing nothing for the last two months in bad weather.
Is Matt Fitzpatrick on track for a successful 2025?
Matt, he's always striving to be as good as he possibly can be.
Like I've always said, since I started working for him, he's Bernard Langer's love child and he puts more effort in than most.
He works incredibly hard and golf's an unforgiving game. Confidence is everything, even if you're one of the higher echelon players like a Rory or a Scottie Scheffler.
Matt had a little bit of a trough last year. He didn't play his best but you know he got married and had other things on his mind. I'm sure he'll come into this season strong.
It looks like he’s picked up a bit of ball speed again and has looked pretty solid after the first round at Maui but then he shot 20 under for the last three rounds.
I'm sure once he gets a couple of good tournaments under his belt he'll go on a nice run for a couple of months.
Golf is a game of peaks and troughs for the most part for the high percentage of the players.
How single minded must you be?
Listen, there's many distractions in life in general. It's not just golf. It could be any walk of life: footballers, bank managers or whatever.
It's easy to play golf when you've got nothing on your mind. I'm not saying he's got stuff on his mind. I don't suppose he has. But it's just golf. If you lose that bit of confidence, that bit of focus, it’s hard. I'm sure he’ll come out all guns blazing once the spring comes.
Are you a fan of this more condensed Majors season?
No, not really. I thought it was better when the PGA Tour finished at the end of October, start of November. It stretched out a bit more when the PGA Championship was in August.
Now it's not just the Majors and the Players' Championship that have been moved. There's one every month, and then the players go through March, April, and you’ve got the Masters. May you got the PGA. June you got the US Open. July you've got the Open Championship. And then a month or so later you've got all these signature events, elevated events. From now until August, it's so hard for the top players to get any weeks off.
It's almost like you're bullied into keeping playing all the time. And it's hard to take time off and get yourself a bit fitter and more relaxed. It's high stress golf.
A large part of it is the next seven months which I'd rather be stretched out a bit more like it used to be. But you can't complain when they're playing for the money they're playing for.
Could Tyrrell Hatton be the best of the Brits in 2025?
He’s a brilliant player, Tyrrel.
He is misunderstood to a certain extent. You need great characters in the game and Tyrell's definitely one of the great characters. Love him or hate him, I absolutely adore him. I think he's fantastic. A breath of fresh air.
He never really gives the caddy a hard time. He just berates himself. He has a go at himself all the time and, you know, I can see how some people are looking thinking you're a nutter, but he's an absolutely brilliant player. He has every chance at winning something big this year.
He's got a really good strong mind regarding how good he is under pressure. He plays great. He's every chance of winning the big tournament. He's the champion in waiting.
What do you make of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods’ new venture TGL Golf?
I don't see it being the future.
It's not something that really interests me that much. It's hard to comment on it but is it the future of golf, playing against a big screen? I don't think so but it's something different for people to watch and they can form their own opinions.
Could a shot clock work in the mainstream game?
Absolutely, yeah.
They played with one at the Australian Open. That had the shot clock. I think it was 40 seconds and the clock was there beside the players on the fairway so they knew exactly where they stood.
I don't know if it's just a shot clock that is needed. I just think it's the officials, the rules and they just need to be a bit stronger I think.
You've got to cut a little bit slack if you've got a difficult shot but if you can't get round in four and a half hours — most of the time you get these difficult courses and it's taking these lads five and a quarter hours like.
It drags on a bit too long. It should be sped up a little bit, I believe, hopefully.
You were in the headlines last week for your comments on Tom Kim's slow play. It’s been suggested that the PGA Tour should follow the LPGA Tour and dock strokes for slow players. Is that a step too far or is that an incentive?
I think it is time that they brought in a stricter limit, whether it be 60 seconds or 50 seconds and then you get a warning. Then, if there was a threat of a penalty shot instead of a monetary fine, I'm sure that the players would change accordingly quickly. I think it could be helped here.
I had that comment in my head about Tom Kim. They asked me in the Sky studio is he really slow? I just said, well, you know — just as a laugh — yeah, I fell asleep on my head covers a couple of times playing with him.
Yeah, Tom's slow, but I mean there's a lot of them that are slow. Take Patrick Cantalay or Brian Harman. There's lots of lads who have got reputations that have been slow but yeah
There’s penalty shots on the ladies too. I think it certainly needs to be explored. It can do the game good. If you’re sat home on a Saturday night, you want to see guys getting on with it and playing a bit quicker.
It's an entertainment business at the end of the day and people get frustrated at guys taking too long, players included.
If you're a fast player and you're playing with a couple of slower guys, then all of sudden the officials come and say you're out of position you need to get a move on then it's unfair on the quicker player too because they have to start rushing as well.
If they’re that bit slower it needs to be done, I think. And maybe docking points is the way to go.
It's been almost 11 years since Rory's last major. Can this be the year he wins big again?
What he needs to do to win is he just needs to play like Rory McIlroy does.
You know I think what happened to him at the US Open last year, it will have really hurt him. Really hurt him.
I've been there and you know obviously I'm not a player but I've been involved in many situations in major championships where you potentially go home in tears. I'm sure Rory did and it hurt him tremendously for months after.
I think it would be good for him now and I think he'll come out stronger and I believe he will win a Major this year.
I think that experience will be the final nail in the coffin. I think I'll make him stronger. I don't think it'll be a negative.
Can he win the Masters? He's been close.
Yes. He can definitely win the Masters. I mean the way he finished last year and the way he's come out this year, even if you look at Pebble Beach — if it’s the Rory of old just wanging that driver down that last hole.
He had a two or three shot lead and he thought, you know, I’ll hit an iron down there and laid it up and hit it on and won the tournament comfortably.
Maybe there was an argument that he might have done that at the US Open but you know I think that experience will be really positive for him. I think he'll definitely win a major this year and at the end of the day it was the two foot putt that did him on the 16th. That cost him the US Open. It really rattled him. You could see that.
I think it'll be the experience that'll make him a lot stronger and I believe he'll definitely win a major this year. He's too good.
How important is the role of a caddy in a situation coming down the stretch with a Major in your grasp and then the player makes the wrong club selection as Rory did?
Obviously when you're coming down the stretch of a Major the adrenaline is going. You can't explain the pressure of it. You don't really feel it all day and then you sort of get to the last three or four holes and you can see the finishing line. You're under the most intense pressure and the adrenaline's pumping through your body and it's difficult you know.
You need a lad at the side there that's going to pull the reins and keep you cool in that moment. The easy thing to do is rush your thought process when you need to slow your thought process down and make the right decisions. Harry [Diamond] is a good caddy.
At the end of the day, you can argue did Rory make a couple of choices he might regret? Maybe but he went with what he thought was best at that moment and his strongest club in the bag is the driver and he figured he'd hit the driver up the last.
He was unfortunate to finish how he did. Bryson DeChambeau did exactly the same after. He actually hit a worse tee shot. I won't say he got away with it because he scrambled it in the bunker and then made an incredible up and down.
You'll always look back at things and think, could we have done that differently maybe? That's the pressure of the moment. Obviously it does help if you slow your thought process down and try and avoid mistakes. Only Rory can look back and decide if he’d have done things different.
You mentioned Bryson. He's been a social media sensation with trying to hole in one over his house. Are we seeing a different Bryson or are people now just seeing the real Bryson?
If you look at Bryson before leaving for LIV to what he is now, I mean, he has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse!
He's gone from being probably not the most popular player to, arguably, the most popular player in the world. He's been a YouTube sensation and he gives the spectators and the fans so much time at these events.
He stays behind for hours signing stuff, for kids and people and he's given a lot to the game and it's been great to see to be quite honest.
Can he win the Masters? Absolutely he can. He's one of the world's elite players and his extra length is a massive advantage for him.
Is it time that Tiger looked to the seniors game like Nicholas and Palmer did or does he still have what it takes for the men's tour?
You know, as long as Tiger can play eight to ten events a year, I think he can still win.
I don't know 100 % how bad his leg is. It's obviously very bad. But if he can get any sort of strength in it, and can start playing just a handful of tournaments more than he has, he can still compete and I still believe he can win.
Tiger won't be thinking about the senior tour. Tiger will be thinking about winning the Masters because that's his mentality.
He’s the strongest mind that I've ever come across. Obviously Jack had a similar mentality but Tiger's been a different animal from any player I've seen over the 40 years of my caddying.
He's the strongest mindset and the most elite athlete and the best player that I've ever seen.
To rule him out, you rule him out at your own peril, no matter if he's got one leg or not.
If he's playing a little bit more and he gets match fit, he can win anywhere. So the senior tour will be the last thing on his mind.
What next for LIV Golf given its breakthrough with a TV deal and airtime on terrestrial TV in the UK?
My opinion's never changed. I've never slagged it off. I mean, LIV looks like it's been designed by the caddies association.
The caddies get all their expenses paid, the flights and hotels. They get the food paid for. They put money behind the bar for the caddies to have a drink.
All the tee times are in the afternoon. It's a shotgun start. They play three rounds instead of four. And the prize money, whether you play good, bad or ugly, is very handsome. Players still get quite a bit of money for playing poorly.
From a caddie's point of view, it's the dream, the LIV Tour.
I think it's a positive for LIV to change some other people's views. They have softened on it because now they've on Fox Sports in America and they're on ITV in Britain.
Certain players are talking completely different to how they used to talk about it. Certain players have even flipped regarding potentially welcoming them back in someday.
So yeah, nobody knows where this is gonna go in two years time but your gut feeling tells you things will get back together in some shape or form that can only be beneficial for the game.
Could Donald Trump be the peace maker to bring golf back together again?
Donald Trump. He's sorting out Ukraine and Russia. He's sorting out Palestine. He's sorting out Canada and Mexico. Now he's sorting out golf.
He's a busy man, isn't he? He's a busy man. But hey, fair play. He's trying to get stuck in and sort out the world's problems. If golf's one of them, so be it. He can't do everything though, can he?
I played with him in New York. I believe, when I was caddying for Sergio Garcia. He was a character.
Trump’s just a steady player. He's probably a 10-to-15 handicap, I would imagine. He just plods along.
He was entertaining. I remember that. He was good fun to be out with, to be quite honest.
That was in 2008. He's a controversial character, isn't he you'd have to say. Some of the stuff he comes out with, you put your hands over your eyes and on other stuff you think fair play to you, The Don.
He's not scared. He says what he thinks. He's not PC. He’s a bit old school isn't he? And it's quite refreshing to be quite honest.
How much of a difference has Greg Norman leaving LIV?
I don't think that's anything to do with it. The players have gone to a different setup. Greg wanted to set up his world tour which never happened so eventually this LIV thing came around which I guess is Greg's idea of 30 years ago to a certain extent.
I don't think that Greg leaving the role will really make that much difference. The powers that be, whether that be the players, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, the Asian Tour, whatever, everyone wants the best result which is getting all the best players back together playing against each other.
I'd like to see some of the top LIV players, if they want to play. The one tour that has suffered the most out of this is the European Tour.
Let's say you want Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson or Cam Smith or John Rahm or even Westy, Garcia or Stenson, if they wanted to play two or three European Tour events why wouldn’t you want them there?
They bring the crowds in. They make the TV more popular. You've got some of the best players in the world, they want to play at Wentworth or some of the great links courses, the British Masters or whatever.
If they wanted to play, why wouldn't you want to let them play? You've got to have quality in your field to make the tournament more watchable, haven't you? So I'd never be banning them, personally, but that's me.
Do you worry about the future of the DP Tour, what was the European Tour?
I look at when I started in the 80s. You'd have Seve, Langer, Lyle, Woosnam, Faldo and Olazábal. Then in the 90s you had Montgomerie, Clarke, Westwood, Harrington and Garcia. They all played the European Tour.
Then the 2000s came along and the next batch still played quite a lot in Europe like Poulter, Casey, Rose et cetera, but then guys started leaving and playing in America full time and living in America.
You know in the last 20 years that’s certainly been the case, that our better players have all lived in America, and now basically, as we’ve mentioned earlier, the schedules go from February to August pretty much and you have to play in the PGA Tour, don’t you, or you’re potentially losing out on the top 50 in the PGA Tour rankings. Which is massive because it obviously gets you into the signature events.
All those lads now never really support the European Tour which is really sad because the legends that were there decades before always supported the best tournaments in Europe. We’ve lost that so yeah I do worry about it a bit. I’d love to see things change and make the European Tour back in Europe, instead of it being all over the place in Japan or South Africa.
I’d love for there to be a German Open in Berlin, a Spanish Open in Madrid, the French Open in Paris, and all being big tournaments — an Italian Open in Rome — all your big countries, all the main cities, with a national Open. It doesn’t have to be fortunes. I’d just love to see the tour brought closer to Europe.
Obviously you’d stay in the Middle East because that’s been great for us but I look at some of the schedules from the 80s and the 90s because the schedule back then was mind-blowing compared to now. So I do worry a bit.
Who is your wildcard pick for Europe’s Ryder Cup team?
I’m looking at one name in particular.
Obviously it’s seven months away, and anybody who’s out of form can play their way into form. If you play May to June and look pretty rubbish then all of a sudden in June, July and August you play really well you will get picked for that Ryder Cup team because you have to pick players that are in form.
You can't pick people on what they did 18 months ago. You've got to pick people that are in form there and then. There's obviously a lot of players in the team. I reckon the European team has probably got nine certainties and then you've probably got a core of players of eight or nine who'll be fighting for three spots.
I think there's one player that might be overlooked and that's David Puig.
He’s on the LIV tour. Of course, nobody will be thinking of this kid at all as we speak. But then again, nobody was thinking of Ludwig Aberg this time last year either. But he could be the one that comes from nowhere.
He's a serious player. He could get a wild card.
Bethpage is a bit of a bear pit. New York is a great venue for the gladiatorial Ryder Cup, isn’t it?
Any tournament in New York is interesting, never mind a Ryder Cup.
When they've all had about six beers, it'll be boisterous to say the least. You'll need a tin hat and a gum shield given to you on the first tee, I think. You need to be mentally strong going out there, that is for sure.
Any Ryder Cup in America is intimidating. I was at Kiawah Island, at Brookline, Hazeltine, you can go on and on.
Once the Americans get their tails up and the chants get going around the course, it gets very intimidating and you have to have a lot of wool on your back and embrace it.
You have to embrace it and enjoy it for what it is. You’ve got to smile back at them even when you're getting dog abuse because you can't take it personally.
You have to man up and get on with it and accept it’s going to be difficult.
Are European fans being priced out of flying over for the Ryder Cup in America?
That’s sport in general now.
You go and watch a Premier League football match or a ticket to the Super Bowl, or even the Olympic games, the prices are just outrageous.
You try and get a ticket to the Masters, you’re talking thousands of dollars and all the top line events, once the touts get involved, the prices go through the roof. It’s unfortunate that it goes up and up.
You might be a fan of Leeds United or Manchester United or Liverpool or whoever and all of a sudden those dads who are working in a job getting £20,000 a year and they want to take their two kids to the football and they can't take them for £20 anymore.
It's a shame. I'd like to see a bit of regulation brought in so that your real, true fans can still go because I think it's very unfair, and a lot of the Premier League clubs are now owned by Americans and all the ticket prices under them keep going up and up.
I would just say that in any sport, even Premier League matches or the Ryder Cup, your real fans are getting priced out of it.
Will the likes of Rahm and Hatton be welcomed back into the fold for the Ryder Cup?
With Jon Rahm and Tyrrel Hatton in your team, you're off to a bit of a flyer.
It's going to be difficult enough. You want your best players and your best team, so wherever you're getting them from, even if you have to drag a couple from off the moon, go and get them down and send them over to play for Europe.
That's the way it is. You have to have your best players. End of.
Basically, you've got to have Jon Rahm, Tyrrel Hatton. Otherwise, don't bother going, mate.
Is Rory McIlroy under too much pressure to deliver?
No, I think Rory is in a good place.
You’ve got to give yourself good ambitions and keep yourself to higher standards so why wouldn’t you want to win the Open at Port Rush and win the Ryder Cup away in America?
You've got to aim for those targets and that's what drives you as a sportsman to have those ambitions so I don't see a problem with that whatsoever.
Are you happy with The Open awarding a spot to the leading LIV player in 2025?
100%! You want your best players there and some of the best players are on LIV.
There's probably 20 world class players on LIV. You'd love to have them in The Open and they definitely should be playing.
There’s probably an argument to give them two or three spots to be quite honest.
Who are you expecting to be the leading names to win the Masters?
Obviously Xander and Scotty are incredibly good players but so is Bryson, and so is Rory, and so is Jon Rahm.
There's lots of players who can win the Masters and Bryson DeChambeau is certainly among them.
If you had to choose half a dozen players who you think can win it, Bryson would be one of them. He absolutely can win it.
Is the standard now higher than you've ever known in golf?
You know, I don't know if I can be quite honest.
I think it's a generational question and at the time when you're in that generation, there's so many good players from your particular generation, and that hasn't changed.
The only thing that's changed is the equipment. The equipment has made the elite player and the very good player so much closer together than it used to be.
The elite player had a certain gap between themselves and the very good player but now the equipment is so forgiving that it's made the very good players close that gap.
That's why you can have more people winning major championships than before, with your Persimmons and the Balata ball and the proper shot makers and not forgiving any misses, when the elite player won more often than they do now.
Do you and Matt still have a bit of banter about the football rivalry between Leeds United and Sheffield United?
You know we have a mutual respect for each other and we know it's the boundary we can’t cross.
If he starts having a go at me, he knows I'll throw his bag in the lake, so he knows not to upset me and I show him respect when it comes to Sheffield United as well.
We have a friendly rivalry and again it looks like it's gonna be Leeds and Sheffield United and Burnley, maybe Sunderland, to go up. It’s down to the four teams but right now it’s Leeds and Sheffield United.
They play each other next and we were on the range at the Players’ Championship about four years ago last time. It was Leeds vs Sheffield United to go to the Premier League and Sheffield United beat Leeds at Leeds 1-0 and he was listening to it when they scored and I didn't even have to say it. He knew not to start winding me up. I'd like to say we have mutual respect on that.
Considering the player turnover at Leeds, you must be pretty happy with how things are going?
Yeah. When they lost Somerville and Rutter and Archie Grey, I thought we’d maybe end up scratching the playoffs. I didn't expect what they've done this year.
I've actually seen them quite a lot this season. I've seen them seven or eight times over the last few weeks. I’ve been at home and more often than not, they're been playing some really good stuff.
The thing that's different is, I look at the bench. They take people off and the ones that come on are just as good. That’s the difference. Before, on the bench there weren’t many alternatives but now there’s like for like replacements which is always a good sign.
It's a brutal league, the Premier League. It’s brutal. The three teams that went up last year look like they’re coming straight down again.
I mean you look at Brighton and Bournemouth and Brentford, good teams aren’t they?
Those teams you'd have to say they've never been Premier League clubs like Leeds or Forest or even Sheffield United and whatever, but they’re doing really well. Bournemouth are arguably up there with the best team in the country on current form. They’ve got three ex-Leeds players and a manager that Leeds tried to get last year.
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