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WELLS FARGO CHAMPIONSHIPMay 13, 2015Rory McIlroyCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA RORY MCILROY: I'm glad to be back in Charlotte. Good memories from here. Got my first win on the PGA TOUR here five years ago. It doesn't seem like that long ago but, yeah, great to be back. I love the golf course here, Quail Hollow. Feel like I always play pretty well here. Yeah, just excited to be back. I fell like I'm playing well, be nice to get that second win in three weeks here so excited for the week to start and, you know, hopefully I can give it another good go. Q. Rory, you seemed a little bit frustrated last weekend with your putting. Give us an a assessment of overall where you game is. RORY MCILROY: It's right there. I'm happy with where my game is. You know, tee to green, it's been really good. Even before last week, I think last week I hit over 80 percent of the fairways. I was closest in proximity to the hole. Didn't get the putts to drop but from what I witnessed out there today, you know, feeling a little more comfortable on the greens and hopefully that can -- hopefully that can show over the next few days. Q. Rory, you won here the first time you played the course. You've won a number of times on courses you played for the first time. Does that color your preparation for the U.S. Open? RORY MCILROY: Yeah. I wouldn't be one to look too much into new courses. You know, what I see out there is what I just try and sort of play with. I'm not trying to overthink it too much. I'm not trying to outsmart anyone out there by trying to play it a different way. You know, I try to play the golf course the way it's designed to be played and, you know, I think sometimes there's overemphasis on knowing a golf course too much because you can know the golf course better than anyone else but if you go out there and don't execute the shots, then it's worthless. Q. Webb said he thinks the best player is going to win that week no matter what the course is. RORY MCILROY: No, it is. It's very true. There might be a few times when course knowledge comes into it a little bit but I think you should have a relative knowledge of the course after playing it two, three times. Q. Rory, you're playing with a young lady here, obviously had a good time out there today. We see you working with a lot of young people out there. What would you tell young ladies and other young kids that want to help in terms of having dreams and goals of what they should do and what has helped you the most to get where are you today? RORY MCILROY: I had a great time playing with Grace out there today. I wish every Pro-Am was like that, to be honest. But, yeah, for me, you know, when I was their age I had dreams and I worked as hard as I could and I always believed in myself, never let anyone tell me that I couldn't do it. So, yeah, mine it's just about that, if you're dedicated and believe enough. At the same time, treat it as a game. It is fun, you have to keep it fun and I still have a lot of fun when I play and I enjoy going out and playing casual rounds of golf with my friends and family and that's the reason that we all start playing golf is because of that, it's because it's fun and because it's a game. You know, I always tell young people just to remember that and sometimes not to take it too serious. Q. Have you been a big goal setter when you were young, her age, in terms of setting goals for yourself? RORY MCILROY: I was. The big thing for me was trying to improve every year. If I can improve every year and when I was that young, you know, when my age group and then go to the next age group and win there and progress from there. It's always -- you always have to set goals for yourself, whether it's golf or life or you, you know, whatever. If you're flipping through life and not setting goals for yourself then you have to aspire to be something. Q. How did you spend your time from Sunday now, a little private? RORY MCILROY: I played 18 holes on Monday and 9 yesterday. The only reason I played I got a couple buddies with me and they wanted to go play at the Bear's Club. Sort of obliged to take them out. Yeah, little bit of golf. Not too much practice, to be honest. It was hot going there for a couple days. Took it easy and, again, as I was saying last week, really just trying to put all my energy that I have into the four tournament days when I get here. Q. Grace, how was it for you today? MS. GRACE: Today was like a dream come true, it was amazing, the best day ever. It was an honor to play with Rory today. Q. Why did you pick Rory? MS. GRACE: Rory has always been my favorite golf. Natural choice. RORY MCILROY: Give me a big head over here. Q. I'm sure you play with a lot of same people, kind of middle-aged rich guys week after week. Was it a little more fun and interesting to play with a 16 year old girl out there today? RORY MCILROY: Definitely. If every Pro-Am was like this I wouldn't complain. We play our fair share of Pro-Ams with, as you said middle-aged rich guys, guys in the corporate world which is great as well. It provides PGA TOUR players with a lot of opportunities, not just on the golf course. But to be able to play with someone like Grace today who has got an amazing background and story. Just let her come out here and enjoy the day as best as she can, that makes me feel good that I can sort of give something back. Q. Grace, what did you learn from Rory, any tips? MS. GRACE: I learned a lot about putting. That's one thing I had a lot of trouble with. He helped me on all the greens, read my putts and taking it slow and watching where it goes. Q. Rory, off the green did you get a chance to know Charlotte at all? Is there anything you love about it? RORY MCILROY: Honestly, because where we stay this week and we don't get to go into the city too much but I did miss the cut in 2011. I sampled what Charlotte had to offer back then but apart from that, no. Just sort of see the hotel and the golf course and a couple of sort of restaurants that I stick to every year. Q. Rory, obviously you're amongst a group of guys in their 20s that are really starting to emerge with Jordan, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, Patrick Reed, I could go on and on. Do you feel like the group, you have a chance to do something really special the game of golf hasn't seen in sometime? RORY MCILROY: I think so. I think the amazing thing about this group of players is that we've come on Tour and we've been ready to win from the start. Jordan wins his first Major at 21. You know, Rickie got his first win here as I did but he really elevated the status with that win last week. Patrick Reed as well. A lot of guys have come out here and it hasn't taken them long how to learn how to win. We don't play maybe with as much fear as some of the rookies used to in the past. So I think it's a great thing. I don't know if we'll do anything that golf hasn't seen before. We had the Big 3 in Arnie, Jack and Gary Player. Even years ago we had Phil and Tiger and Vijay, Retief Goosen, Ernie Els, that was a pretty good group as well. The potential is there. We could be fighting it out for tournaments for the next 15, 20 years. It should be fun. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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