|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 28, 2014Rory McIlroyNORTON, MASSACHUSETTS JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Rory McIlroy into the interview room here at the Deutsche Bank Championship. He is the 2012 champion here at this event and he comes into the week No. 2 in the FedExCup. Rory, welcome back to TPC Boston. If we can get some thoughts from you on your goals for the week. RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'm excited to be back here. Obviously I've had some success, before, as you mentioned. 2012 was a good year for me here. It was in the middle of a great run, like I sort of am on now. It's a golf course that sets up well for me. I played it this morning. It's a little firmer, especially the greens, than what they usually are. So it's going to be a good test out there. The rough is a little thicker, as well. So you're going to have to drive the ball in the fairway, and you're going to have to bring in some iron shots pretty high to stop them on these greens. It looks like it will set up well for me, if I play my game. I'm excited for the week. The opportunity to try to get back to that No. 1 place in the FedExCup and move on to Denver with a little bit of a lead. So we'll see what happens. Q. Might not be a fair question, but do you feel any similarities or see any similarities between the run that you're on now to what you were producing two years ago? RORY McILROY: Yeah, there is some similarities. I think my frame of mind and where I am mentally is very similar. Very relaxed, too. I'm going out on the golf course and I'm not really putting a lot of pressure on myself. I'm just going out and playing. And I know that if I play well, that I'll have somewhat of a chance to maybe win the tournament. But my golf game feels probably a little more in control than it did back then. Certain shots that I'm able to hit now that I maybe wasn't able to hit back then. And I'm definitely driving the ball as good as I ever have, if not better. Of course there are similarities, but at the same time I feel like I'm a more experienced and more developed player now than I was a couple of years ago. Q. Couple of different questions. Can you walk us through a couple of highlights, maybe, from breakfast with Bill Clinton the other day. And secondly, given what happened a couple of years ago in the playoffs, do you maybe put less emphasis on winning from the standpoint of trying to pace yourself as opposed to just the importance of winning every tournament? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I spent a great afternoon with President Clinton on Tuesday. I was actually -- we were planning on playing golf together in the morning, as well. But I think he promised Hilary he had to do something, so he was going to do something. So he spent the morning with her and her family. But it was great. Anytime you get a chance to spend some time with a person like that who -- the stories that he can tell and the life experiences that he's had, it's just a great man to listen to. And lunches with him, you look at your watch and you've not realized that you've been sitting there for three hours, chatting about any topic you want in the world. He has enough knowledge to know everything about it. He's obviously a huge golf fan. So we talked a lot about golf. We talked about a lot of other stuff. He was telling interesting stories when he was in office and dealing with different leaders from certain countries. It's really interesting and it's almost like you get a lifetime of sort of education on that stuff that you didn't already know. There's so many things. I take a lot out of those sort of experiences. It's obviously an honor for me to be in a position where I'm able to do things like that. So it was a cool afternoon. I really enjoyed it. And the FedExCup, yeah, I mean I had a great year, as well. But it does come down to -- it doesn't come down to just who plays well at the TOUR Championship. It if you're in the top five going into the TOUR Championship, you know if you win, you're going to win the whole thing. Brandt Snedeker was 5th in the standings and I was first. He won the tournament. I finished 10th. He won that. You know that going in there, it's not like you have any complaints about it. So does it mean there's less of an emphasis on winning going into The TOUR Championship? Not really, because you want to win every event you play. And if you win you obviously gain the most points. And I don't feel like if -- say I had to win either here or at Denver, does that mean that I have less of a chance to win The TOUR Championship? No. I don't think there's any point in trying to put yourself that way. I'll take a win anywhere I can get it. If that means I win here or win at Denver going into The TOUR Championship, I'd much rather be in first or second going into The TOUR Championship than third, fourth or fifth here, it gives you that much of a better chance. Q. On that same story, you talked about Bridgestone, where does the FedExCup rank as far as your legacy? RORY McILROY: It's up there. I think I said last week at the Barclays that it's one of the only things in golf that I probably haven't achieved. There's a few things in golf that I still haven't achieved. But the FedExCup is one of them. And it would be great to win. Apart from the money and everything else that goes along with it. I feel like I've played a lot of good golf this season and I should be right there until the end. I said last week, I feel like this season deserves a good finish, and that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to keep it going. And I'm trying to give it the finish that it really should have. Q. Great season. A lot of -- after a lot of your big wins this year, we've heard you talk about mental toughness, and a lot of what Tom Brady talks about is mental toughness, and I wonder if you're a fan at all of his work? RORY McILROY: Of course. You've got to admire what Tom has done over his career. And he still keeps going. Is he 37? Something like that. He still keeps going. Each and every year he's getting his team to the playoffs and winning big games in clutch moments. That's what he thrives on. That's what he trains for. That's what he practices for. And it's sort of the same for us. We drive on those moments like we had at the PGA, where there's a few guys in contention, and you need to pull out the shots at the right time. That's the fun part of it. And, yeah, you do need mental toughness and you do need to be mentally strong. And I feel like that's developed in me over the last couple of years and allows me to get in positions like that again and know that I am capable of pulling out the right shots when it matters. Q. I was wondering when you were appearing on Fallon, Jimmy Fallon, and talking about Tiger, did you mean to refer to his dominance and his work effort in the past tense? Do you expect him to come back and contend and maybe even dominate again? RORY McILROY: Did I mean to refer -- no, I didn't mean -- I was just saying -- I mean if you go by present day, like he was dominant, he's not playing at the minute. So he can't be dominant if he's not on the golf course. Yeah, I fully expect -- his priority right now is to get healthy and to get stronger and fitter again to be able to swing the golf club the way he wants to. He's giving himself until the end of the year. Which I think that's what he should do. I fully -- he's definitely highly motivated. I expect nothing less than him to come out next year and be playing well and get back to where everyone knows he can be. Q. A few of your Ryder Cup teammates are absent this week. Did you give thought to potentially sitting this week out? If so, what made you decide to come and tee it up? RORY McILROY: No, I didn't really give thought to skipping any of these weeks. I was maybe a little bit on Denver, but I feel good. I feel fresh. And it's good that we have the week off. A lot of guys are sort of taking it off because they might think that even with that week off leading up to the Ryder Cup they might still feel a little tired. But I feel a week off for me is more than enough for me to feel fresh going into the Ryder Cup. Not really, I mean it did cross my mind skipping one of these events, but, again, as I said, I want to give myself the best chance to win the FedExCup, and the best chance to do that is by playing all of these events. Q. You said after the Barclays that you didn't putt as well as you had wanted to. How much of a focus this week was working on that short game? Is that ultimately what it's going to take to move into No. 1 in the standings? RORY McILROY: I think it is, yeah. If you looked at my ball-striking stats from Ridgewood, they weren't very different from what I had been doing the previous few weeks, I just didn't hole enough putts, I really didn't. But it seemed like everyone was struggling to hole putts on Ridgewood. They were pretty tricky. I guess we haven't putted off poa annua greens for a while, so that takes a little bit of adjusting to. I played the last couple of days up at Long Island and did a little bit of work, but this afternoon I'm going to put in a couple of hours on the range and on the putting green and just make sure that I'm really ready to go tomorrow. Q. You've been to Boston a few times, 2012 you had a great year. Is there anything that you like to do when you come to Boston? I know you talked about the Patriots. Do you get a chance to go out and relax a little bit? RORY McILROY: You know, honestly I haven't spent much time in Boston, itself. It's a little too far away for us to stay there. And it's a little too far to venture into the city. Especially on Labor Day weekend, it's busy and a lot of people there. We sort of keep a low key this week. Boston is obviously a great city, a great sports city. But I haven't been to any games or any -- I'd love to go. Maybe a week where we weren't playing in a tournament and you had a little bit more time. But I always get a great support here. Obviously there's a huge Irish community in this area. And I feel like every time I come and play I get a huge support. So it's always fun to play in front of them. Q. Nice little chip in on 3 this morning on the Pro Am, seemed like a fun morning. Talk about that and how the course is playing right now? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I had a fun time out there. The guys I played with this morning were great guys, and didn't take it too seriously and had a great time. It's nice when your Pro Am partners are like that, and just out there and have a good time, and let you do your things, a few extra putts or extra chips on the green, it was nice. The course is playing good. It was a little breezy out there. But as I said even after that rain last night the greens are firmer from what -- firmer than what I remember. Than being the last couple of years. The rough is a little thicker, a little longer, as well. You're going to have to hit the ball in the fairway, and then you're going you have to bring your irons in a little higher and stop them a little quicker, especially because I don't think we're expecting any rain for the rest of the week. Hopefully that can play into my hands a little bit. Q. How much did Monday morning when Paul makes his picks, and have you talked about what he's looking for in his third pick? RORY McILROY: Not really. It's Paul's decision at the end of the day. And he's probably been looking a little more closely than I have at it. I know a few of the guys that are in the mix. Stevie Gallacher needs a top two in Italy to bump himself up on to the team. But Paul's going to have a tough decision to make. Because he's going to have to -- there's a few guys that in previous years would have been able to make the team on merit, and haven't this week. So there's a couple of guys that you go -- do you go with experience or do you go with form? He's got a tough job. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't not want to be in his position, but he's got -- he's got a couple of tricky decisions to make. Whoever he picks to play they're going to be great additions to the team, whether it's because of experience or because of good form. That's completely his call. I'd never give my opinion on it, because it's not anything to do with me. Of course I'm on the team but at the same time I'm happy to have my place. And it's not for me to say who else I would want on the team. Q. If you could, from a big picture mentality standpoint, with where you're at in your career right now, if you had to choose, would you rather win 7 more British Opens or one Masters? RORY McILROY: Seven more Open Championships. Q. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on Justin and Graham, the guys taking weeks off for rest, and Sergio. Is that something you could envision yourself doing, when you become a ripe old man in your 30s, because of the ongoing grind that you guys go through? RORY McILROY: Yeah, a couple of guys have taken weeks off for perfectly valid reasons. GMac and his wife Kristen just had a baby on Monday. So it's a good thing that he's not here. If he was here I'd be worried. Justin's kids are starting school. They just moved to the Bahamas. So they're starting school this week as well. He wanted to be there for that. I completely understand. Sergio, yeah, I mean Sergio, he feels like he doesn't want to be burned up before the Ryder Cup, again, that's his call. And I'd have no problem missing a tournament because of something that came up in my personal life or something -- I have no problem with that at all. But right now, you know, it's just me and I'm happy to play any week that I need to. Q. Everybody talks about your swing and admires it so much. In terms of percentage, how much was innate, genetic, versus what you had to work on, from your youth on up, if you could just put an angle on that? RORY McILROY: I'd probably say 60/40. 60 percent sort of natural and sort of -- yeah, I mean whatever you want to call it, talent, ability, whatever. And 40 percent of the rest was hard work. And obviously you have a talent there, hand/eye coordination or whatever, but you have to try and make the most of that and get it into the right positions and try and make it more consistent. I've done a lot of hard work on my swing, even though it still looks like a very natural motion, which it is. I've still done a lot of hard, technical work on my swing over the years, to get it in the positions that I do. JOHN BUSH: Rory McIlroy, thank you, sir. RORY McILROY: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|