Winning the Ryder Cup might have been more valuable than Rory McIlroy realized.

McIlroy already was emotionally and physically spent from Europe beating the Americans in Rome for a seventh straight time on home soil — and from the celebration into the next morning before flying home with Shane Lowry and their wives.

Turns out the party wasn’t over just yet.

McIlroy sent Lowry a text the following day inviting him over to lunch. That turned into dinner, with a couple of bottles of wine in between, and visits from a few South Florida neighbors in Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald and Michael Jordan.

McIlroy called it a “ drunken lunch.” Somewhere along the way, whether it was the wine or the aftermath of Ryder Cup euphoria, he asked Lowry if he wanted to play in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the PGA Tour’s only official team event.

Equally surprising, McIlroy remembered.