	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TURKISH AIRLINES OPEN

October 28, 2015

Rory McIlroy

Antalya, Turkey

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Welcome to the Turkish Airlines Open.

RORY McILROY: Thank you, Michael.

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Good to see you.

RORY McILROY: Good to see you.

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Update on fitness and form before we go into our question and answer session.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I guess more concerned about form than fitness at this point. My fitness is totally fine.

Yeah, I'm happy to be here and health-wise, I'm pretty much back to where I need to be. I've started to train the way I was before the injury again, and happy about that. So trying to get my game back into the shape that I know that I can and feel like I've made a few steps in the right direction. This week is another opportunity to see where my game is, try and get into contention and try to win.

I feel like there's a lot's happened and a lot of time has gone by since that last win of mine back in May. Want to try and get back into contention and no better players than this week.

Q. Do you see this Final Series and The Race to Dubai as a chance not to rescue the season -- you called it a lost season; do you see it as a chance to give it a positive spin at the end?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, that's what I can get out of it is just trying to finish the season off well. You know, I'd like to, obviously like to win The Race to Dubai. Like to win at least one of these last three events that I'm playing. That would -- it would make me feel better about the end of the year, from whenever it was, when I injured my ankle, to the start of July; if I was to go from then to the end of the season without another win, especially with how I was playing up until that point, it would be very disappointing.

So I've got three opportunities coming up to try and get a win or two on the board and end this year on a positive. You know, at least go into next year with a bit of momentum.

Q. You touched on it before but what would it mean to win The Race to Dubai for the third time, and are you surprised to still be at the top of the standings given how much time you've had off in the season?
RORY McILROY: It would mean an awful lot. I had a great chance back in 2009 to win and didn't quite; Lee pipped me there. Had a great season in 2012 and was able to win. Probably one of the best finishes I've had in a golf tournament, finished with five birdies in Dubai to win the tournament and win the overall thing.

And then last year, it would have been nice to, I felt I was playing well enough to win the tournament and win The Race to Dubai again and didn't quite do that.

But yeah, it would mean an awful lot; to win The Race to Dubai for the third time would be a great achievement and that's obviously what I'm trying to do the next few weeks.

Q. As well as making a statement to yourself for the rest of the year and this week, will it also be a key to make a statement to Jordan and Jason just a reminder that you're back?
RORY McILROY: Not really. I'm really not thinking about that. I'm not thinking about those guys. I'm just concentrating on myself and trying to play the best that I can, and I know that if I do that, I've got a good chance here in China next week and then in Dubai.

So I'm really not concentrating and not thinking about that at all. I'm just trying to concentrate on myself and try to get my game back to where I know that it can be, and if I can do that, then all the rest of that stuff will sort of take care of itself.

Q. What in particular do you feel has been lacking in your game or since you came back from the injury and what's been your best performance since you've come back?
RORY McILROY: Haven't been able to get the ball in the hole in the least amount of shots possible. I've been struggling with my putting more than anything else. And then I felt like I didn't really hit the ball great at THE TOUR Championship. I felt like I hit the ball better at Fry's. Was getting a little bit more pressure on it.

Yeah, just -- yeah, if anything, I feel like I've given myself enough chances, and I've hit the ball well enough to contend in tournaments and to win tournaments, but my putting sort of held me back. So I've worked on that quite a lot and continuing to work on it, but I feel like that's going in the right direction.

I would say my best performance is probably -- I mean, finish-wise the BMW Championship in Chicago. I finished fourth there. I mean, I finished seven shots behind Jason I think that week. Felt like I played pretty well there and I thought that was going to be a bit of a springboard to the rest of the year and didn't quite follow that up at THE TOUR Championship. Had a good first round but then fell away.

So it's sort of been sort of two steps forward and one step back a little bit since I've come back from injury, and I would just like to keep moving forward these next four weeks and try to finish the season on a positive note.

Q. Can you tell something more about getting from a high to a low, how difficult that is, and in what way does it affect your confidence?
RORY McILROY: I definitely wouldn't call what I went through a low. I mean, okay, everyone goes through injuries and those things happen. But I don't feel like I've lost my game that much. I haven't dropped -- I mean, back in 2013 I dropped out of the Top-10 in the World Rankings and that was pretty tough to try and get back from there.

But again, it was nice to be able to finish that season on a high with a win down in Australia at the end of the year.

I guess I always have the belief. The good thing for me is that I can draw on some of the great performances and the memories that I have from winning big tournaments and knowing that if I've done that before, there's no reason why I can't do that again.

Q. You've obviously hosted The Irish Open, and Ian Poulter has hosted the British Masters. Is there any merit in perhaps giving credit to yourself or players that host a tournament in terms of meeting your schedule of 13 minimum events?
RORY McILROY: I'm not sure. I didn't make the decision to host The Irish Open or to get involved because of that. I've always felt like playing 13 on The European Tour wasn't that difficult. I mean, it means that you have to limit yourself in the States, but I mean, I really don't think -- with the World Golf Championships, the majors, your home open, a few of the other events around a major, it's pretty easy to make up 13. So there is a lot of travel involved, but it has not been a problem for me apart from this year when I was out for a few weeks.

But I don't know, I mean, that would sort of be a bit tough, because it's only the higher-profile guys that can really host an event. So is that -- I don't know, it's a bit of a double-edged sword, I'm not sure.

Q. You are in Turkey, your first time in Istanbul and now in Antalya. What's your first impressions about the course? Did you have a chance to go out?
RORY McILROY: I haven't played the golf course yet, so I can't really comment on it. But the facilities are fantastic. Great hospitality, great hotel, beautiful setting on the beach and then the mountains in the background. Very happy to be here and everyone has been very welcoming.

Looking forward to see the golf course this week, and hopefully I can play well here and at least play better than how I did last time when I was back here in 2012.

Q. Just given your injury that you've had this year, your thoughts on not playing too many events in a row next year; have you looked at the schedule: Quail Hollow, PLAYERS, Irish Open, BMW, Memorial, there's four in a row --
RORY McILROY: There's potentially four in a row.

Q. Are you going to be able to play all four?
RORY McILROY: I will answer that question closer to the time.

Q. Could I just follow-up on another matter. You're playing with Shane Lowry this week. Can you talk a little bit about Shane's play recently? He won a World Golf Championships and he's stepped up quite a lot.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, he has. It's been great to see. I think we've all known that Shane's had the talent to do something like that. I watched the final nine holes of Akron when I was at Whistling Straits preparing, and it was quite a display of sort of guts down the stretch with the putt he held on 10 and the shots he hit coming down the stretch.

It's great to see him sort of push on from there. I'm not really sure -- I don't think he's played much since then. He's played two or three times since. But I'll have a good look to see how he's playing this week. Playing with him the first two days. But yeah, obviously great to see. It's always good to see when the guys from home do well.

Q. I think you said during the Fry's.com that the problem with the putting was more mental than anything. Was that the case, and if so, have you been working to try and put that right?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it has been. I've sort of -- I felt like every time I missed the putt, there was a question that followed it, so any time I missed a putt: Did I pull it, did I misread it, did I whatever. So it's more trying to free myself up, get out of my own way a little bit.

And so I worked quite a bit on routine, just a bit on -- yeah, just the mental approach of a putt and trying to free myself up and trying to simplify it a little bit instead of I felt like sometimes I was making it a little bit more complicated than it has to be.

So just trying to free myself up. And again, it's good on the putting green. I see really good signs on the putting green but it's just trying to transfer that from the putting green on to the golf course.

Q. How would you characterise yourself as a putter? Plenty of people over the last few weeks have commented on McGinley said you was a streak putter. How would you characterise yourself? Is it something you really enjoyed compared to sort of driving the ball?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I mean, it's -- we take more putts than we do full shots on the course nearly. So it's a very important part of the game. I mean, obviously I think anyone enjoys putting more when they see the ball go in the hole. But yeah, I mean, I feel I'm a good putter.

I feel like I hole out well. I definitely hole out much better than I used to do. And when I get my eye in, I'm really good. I do hole a lot of putts. But yeah, I don't get my eye in as much as I'd like to. So streaky, I'll always be somewhat of a streaky putter.

I feel like everyone has strengths of their game and I've alluded to this before, where I know what the strengths of my game are, and it's just about trying to make your weaknesses that little bit better each and every year.

As long as my strengths are as strong as they possibly can be, I'll always -- if you're hitting ten to 12 fairways a round, 14 to 16 greens a round, you're always going to give yourself plenty of chances. If you have a couple of good days as a tournament where a few putts go in, that can suddenly be a couple of seven or eight under rounds, and that's really all you need.

But yeah, I'm trying to get more consistent. I feel like my putting has become a little more consistent since the start of my career, but it just takes time, and sometimes I'll put great, like in the middle of last year, even at some points this year. But then there's been times where it sort of dropped off a bit.

So I'd like to keep the level somewhat similar. But you have -- everyone goes through these things in their game, whether it's me and putting or someone else in their driving. So it's one of these things that I'm always going to have to work on and try to keep on top of.

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Rory, thanks very much for joining us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297