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OMEGA DUBAI DESERT CLASSICJanuary 28, 2015Rory McIlroyDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES MICHAEL GIBBONS: Rory, thanks for joining us, as always, welcome back to Dubai. Happy hunting ground for you? RORY McILROY: It has been in the past. One win here at the Emirates, but seems every time I come here I have a chance and I play well. It's a great way to start the season. I've done this the last few years where I've played Abu Dhabi, taken another week off to practise and then come here and play in Dubai. Looking forward to the week. Played nine holes yesterday. Played the Pro‑Am just there. The course is in fantastic shape. The greens are as good as I've ever seen them. So, yeah, looking forward to it. Feel like my game is in good shape, so see what I can do. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Given your form, you should be expecting to at least contend. RORY McILROY: I would like to think so. I'm very happy with where my game is tee‑to‑green and put some good work in over the last week on my short game, which I felt needed a little bit of sharpening up from Abu Dhabi, so hopefully I can just keep it going. I've got four days to try and get back on the victory trail and feels like a long time since my last win, so it would be nice to get another one pretty soon and start the year off and head to the States with a victory under my belt. Q. You've finished second, second, second on The European Tour in your last three starts. First of all, how will you break that streak over here? And secondly, when you're playing this well, is there a benchmark that you set for yourself that you've got to finish in the top five in every tournament? Would you be disappointed if you finish outside the top five, say, sixth or seventh? RORY McILROY: Disappointed if I don't win to be honest. But I think everyone should feel that way. I don't think that's just me. You come here to try to win events. You're not here to try to finish in the top five. Sometimes you walk away from a week and you're satisfied with the top five because you haven't played that well, so you've done the best out of the week about you're still disappointed that you couldn't perform better. So I guess that's a benchmark, you're trying to go in there and win every event you do play. I'd definitely like to break the runner's up duck the right way than the wrong way. We'll see. But I'm comfortable on this golf course and I have good memories here and I seem to play the course very well, so hopefully I can continue to do that this week. Q. In your second places, do you look at any and think you should have won rather than people beat you? Is it easier to accept, obviously, when it's out of your hands, anyway. RORY McILROY: I feel‑‑ I think Ollie Wilson did really well to win the Dunhill. I didn't feel like I lost that in any way. I was a little disappointed, I got a very lucky break on 18 in DP World in November, and didn't take advantage of it. Didn't make birdie at the last. That would have got me into the playoff. So I felt like I could have done better there. And last week, I was disappointed that I didn't play‑‑ the week before in Abu Dhabi, I didn't play well the third day and thought I left myself too much to do, and then Martin had that bad run of holes and that let a few people back into it. But I don't feel like I lost any in any way. I felt like I could have maybe done a better job of coming down the stretch on the back nine at DP World, but apart from that, I feel like I played well the other times. Q. This is your last event outside America before the Masters. Do you feel the excitement building, and are there things you're working on now thinking ahead to Augusta? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'm working on everything. I'm not really working on my game looking ahead. I'm just trying to make everything as good as it possibly can be. But I guess maybe there's a few things that I'm happy with in my game that, say, if Augusta was to roll around next week, I would be happy going there knowing that I'm hitting the ball the way I want to. I think it's important just to put in some good performances before that and get into contention and feel what it's like in the heat of the moment, because that's when you really know how your game is and how it holds up under some pressure. I've got a few chances to do that over the next few weeks and hopefully I can, and that will really let me know where my game is heading into the first major of the year. Q. Do you feel like it's getting closer, feel more excitement? RORY McILROY: Yeah, of course. You've got the sort of start in the States; obviously this week over there is a big week, Tiger back, Phil's playing and the Super Bowl in Phoenix, as well. Obviously that's going to be a huge week over there and people are excited for that. We've got a great field over here for this week, Henrik and Martin and G‑Mac, and all the other guys that are playing, so it feels like the golf season is well and surely begun and yeah, won't be long until the Masters rolls around. Q. So much has happened since the first win here. When you are back on the course, do you look at the bunker on 18 and think, that's where it all started and sort of have to pinch yourself at what's happened since? RORY McILROY: I said to JP, it's been six years since that win and hasn't been a bad six years. It's been okay. But yeah, I first played in this tournament ten years ago, which is hard to imagine but it's been great and obviously enjoy it and it's a great place to come back to, even if this wasn't the place of my first victory as a pro. So always have good memories. I guess it was where it all began. I felt like the end of '08, I started to play good golf, got myself into the Top‑50 in the world. I guess when you get your first win, you feel like you move to a different level, which is nice. Q. The Ryder Cup captaincy sort of situation looks like it's going to hot up in the next month or so, and we've heard from Miguel saying that he would like the job with a passion; you've spoken about Darren Clarke's sort of candidature, as well. What's your take on the situation as the committee starts to get ready? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think they are going to have a tough decision. Look, I always thought Darren would be a perfect fit for captaincy in the States. People love him over there and he'll do well. But at the same time, people love Miguel anywhere he goes, and the more he plays on the Champions Tour, he won last week, he's going to become more popular, as well. So they will have a tough decision on their hands. They are both quality candidates and great players in their own right. So, I mean, it's not up to me at the end of the day, and as long as I'm on the team and they decide to play me, I'm happy enough. Q. But would you expect to be sort of consulted by the committee? RORY McILROY: I think so. I haven't really been consulted about it as of yet, so as I said, it's not really‑‑ I guess in a way it is something to do with me because hopefully I'll be on the team but at the same time it's up to them to make a decision. I mean, if I'm‑‑ I'm going to be a little biased; Darren is a good friend of mine and from Northern Ireland and everything, so it would be great to see him get the captaincy. But at the same time if it was to be Miguel, then I would have no problems with that either. Q. I was just going to ask you, looking at your sort of strokes gained in putting last year on the PGA Tour, you wasn't from 120th to 41st, what did you do to improve that? RORY McILROY: I figured something out on the sixth green at Augusta on the Sunday, sort of just by myself. Alignment was a little bit off and just started doing a couple of things in my routine. I putt a lot with that mirror that people have probably seen me with on the putting green. Just trying to put a little more structure around it I guess, and it's really helped. I didn't putt as well as I would have liked last week but I don't think it was anything to do with technically. It was just more just reading the greens and felt like I was starting the ball online, so that was really it. I sort of got to the point at the Masters last year where I really was‑‑ I just wasn't comfortable with it and I needed to go in a new direction and started to work a bit on my own again. I actually consulted my good friend, Harry Diamond, and we worked a little bit on it, when I went home for a couple of weeks after the Masters and I've just kept with it ever since. Q. What area of your game are you looking to improve this year then? RORY McILROY: Everything I guess. I think one area of my game that I could probably get better at is my wedge play from 80 to 130 yards because I do leave myself a lot of shots from that distance. And if I'm driving the ball well‑‑ I feel like for the most part, I do take advantage but even if it saves me one or two strokes a tournament where I can just get my wedge play a little sharper, it could make a big difference. It's something I've been trying to work on a little bit the last few weeks, and you know, as I say, I'm very comfortable with how I'm driving the ball so I'm giving myself plenty of chances. It's just from there, it's been as efficient as I possibly can converting those chances and not being wasteful. Q. Going back to that win here in 2009, I wonder on the Sunday evening when you're done with the media and you're sat down enjoying the win and you were talking with your team and you probably were making expectations and plans for the next season, next couple of years, three, four years, now you're sat here. Are you way beyond those expectations you had on that Sunday night after you won in your career? RORY McILROY: I've never really thought that far ahead to be honest. Sort of just taken it week‑by‑week, year by year. But did I think then that I would be sitting here having achieved what I have? Probably not. So in a way, I have exceeded my expectations. But I never really‑‑ I never put a goal of, I want to do this by the time I'm 25; I want to do this by I'm 30. It's a long career. There's no point in setting these milestones because we've seen in golf, there's very early starters that have success early and sort of fade away, or you have late bloomers that find success in their late 30s and have a good stretch of ten years. Golf is very different than other sports. We potentially have a period of 20 years where we can be competitive and win at the highest level. Not a lot of sports can allow you to do that. That's why there's never any rush in this game. You try and do things the right way and if it takes a little bit more time, that's fine, because you have the luxury of time on your side in this game and you try and use that. Q. In Abu Dhabi, you were telling us about the boarding pass and what you've written down for this year. Is that as far as it goes, you don't look ahead past this season? RORY McILROY: No, not at all. I don't see any reason to or any point. I just take, as I say, week by week, year by year. That's what works best for me. I don't know if other people do it differently than that. But for me, I sort of just take it as it comes and try and do the best with what I have right then and there. Q. We know what awaits you next week. Just wonder, as that gets closer, just wonder if it is beginning to play more on your mind, particularly when you have as much downtime as you had last week between tournaments? RORY McILROY: No, to be honest, I've been concentrating on this and practise and that stuff's much more important to me than what's going to happen next week. I haven't‑‑ after this tournament's over, I'll have to do my homework a little bit but at the same time, I'm fully focused on this event and golf and try and do the best I can this week. Q. I know you can't talk about the details of it, but is there a sense that you just want to get it over with; that there will be just a huge relief and you'll be able to draw a line and move forward? RORY McILROY: Yeah, of course. It's not something that I would want anyone to go through. It's a very sort of tedious and nasty process at times. Yeah, look, I'm going to be heading to the States regardless with it off my mind and not having to deal with it or think about it, that will be it. It will be nice once it's over and done with, yeah. Q. Martin Kaymer said yesterday that in a way he was glad what happened in Abu Dhabi because it was a life lesson. When you think back to the Masters, can you relate in ‑‑ RORY McILROY: It was the most important day of my career, yeah, bar none. It was the most important day, because if I had not have had that happen to me, who knows where I would have been. I learnt so much from that day. I learnt not what‑‑ I learnt what I shouldn't do when I'm in that situation again. You learn way more from those days than you do from your victories. I obviously know how Martin's feeling about that. They are important lessons to learn, and everyone needs to go through them at some point in their life, whether it's golf or whatever, you make mistakes, and that's where you learn and move on and become better at whatever you want to do. Q. If overconfidence played a part in what happened at Abu Dhabi, is it a fine line‑‑ RORY McILROY: Yeah, I would never have‑‑ I wouldn't have put what happened to me at Augusta to overconfidence. It was more tentativeness and defensively, really, where Martin had such a big lead that I can see where you could get a little bit complacent. But yeah, it's good that he's learned from it and he'll move on and not make the same mistake again. Q. You said your short game needed to be sharper in Abu Dhabi, and yet you still managed to shoot a comparatively very low number. As an early marker, it wasn't too shabby, was it? RORY McILROY: No, it was great, to shoot 18‑under par for four days, I think I hit like 89 per cent of the greens. So when you're doing that and you're giving yourself so many birdie chances, would you like to think that you would shoot a little bit under par. Yeah, there's a few, just as I said there earlier, by just not being wasteful and maybe getting up‑and‑down a couple more times around or even once‑‑ there's a lot of times, even on Sunday, where like I had under a hundred yards to the pin on 11 didn't make birdie. Only had a wedge in my hands on 16, didn't make birdie, just stuff like that, where you can just get a little bit more efficient I guess and take advantage of how you're hitting the ball tee‑to‑green. Q. Sorry to return to next week, but do you have a rough outline at this stage of when you'll first be in court, and is there any possibility of it being settled? RORY McILROY: You'll have to‑‑ you'd have to ask my lawyers about that. I'm just being told what to do and when to be there and where to be and that's really it. Q. When do you have to be there? RORY McILROY: Well, I get into Dublin Monday and then I guess it starts Tuesday. MICHAEL GIBBONS: This press conference is adjourned. Rory, good luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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