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NORTHERN TRUST OPEN

February 19, 2016

Rory McIlroy

Pacific Palisades, California

Q. Give us an assessment of your round today.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think it was sort of a tail of two nines. I played the front nine very well, very solid, 3-under par. I think for me, that's the more difficult nine on this golf course.

And the back nine was a little scrappy. The bogey on 10, which you can do here, I mean, it's a tricky golf hole. I sort of put myself out of position. But bogey from the middle of the fairway at 13 and then to 3-putt 15, as well. Sort of two unforced errors there. I can't make those going into the weekend, if I want to have a chance to win.

Rectified it a little bit with the two birdies on the back nine and the par 5s, but just need to get off to a fast start tomorrow, get myself close to the leaders and play a good, solid round and see where that puts me going into Sunday.

Q. What did you have in on 17?
RORY McILROY: 285 pin.

Q. Earlier in the week you talked about how important it is to be making those par putts from five feet.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, definitely. I don't know if you could see on the telecast but the greens were getting very bumpy out there. I think more than anything else, because of the low sunlight, you could really see it. And especially with some of the -- even the 15- and 20-footers that you were leaving yourself, you didn't really want to race them by too much, because those 3- and 4-footers are very, very tricky here.

So I felt I held a few good putts today. I missed a couple, as well, particularly on the back nine. But yeah, I think with less traffic over the weekend and not as many guys, hopefully they will be a little bit smoother for us.

Q. How do you balance being kind of aggressive with the putter and trying to make them, and just being a little bit defensive? Bubba was talking about that, not leaving yourself anything more than two or three feet.
RORY McILROY: I know, even on the back nine there, if I lagged a putt up within 18 inches, I was still marking it. Sort of going, "You go ahead, I'll take my time on this one."

It is; it is a fine balance. I think that it's all to do with your approach shot. If you can leave the ball below the pin here and give yourself uphill putts, it makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Q. How many times have you gone to a course on word-of-mouth and it lived up to your expectation? Does that happen a lot?
RORY McILROY: Not a lot. I'd say here, Augusta, Shinnecock. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing Oakmont this year. I've heard a lot of good things about there. Yeah, I do like it here, I really do.

Q. Did you like it immediately?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, and I don't feel like I have to play really good to still shoot a score. It's that sort of golf course, if you can limit your mistakes and play solid golf, it's there to score. It's a fun golf course. It's just fun to play. It's nice that there's basically no hazards on the golf course, and it's tree-lined. I like golf courses like that. Sort of like an Akron-type of thing, where not many hazards, but if you hit it off-line or if you put yourself in the wrong position, you're going to get punished for it.

Q. How much confidence do you draw from the second shot you hit on 18, carve it around the trees -- or do you just expect to do that?
RORY McILROY: It was a tough one. I made better contact with it than I was expecting. It was sort of in a little bit of a cuppy lie, and I got just steep enough on it that I got the ball first, so that I could at least get a bit of spin on it. The wind was helping me a tiny bit.

But yeah, I mean, that's one of the -- I feel like that's one of my advantages, my imagination or visualization of golf shots, and even if I do get myself into a little bit of trouble here, I'm able to at least get myself out of it and give myself a chance for par. Sort of like what happened there on 18 I guess.

Q. You ended up with a little bit of trouble on 10. When you're trying to hit it left and still hit it far, over the cross-bunker and all that, how small is the margin for putting it anywhere that's playable?
RORY McILROY: Ways I was going to say, the people standing over the left of that bunker are not in a good spot. That's a dangerous position. They are going to get hit. (Laughter).

But it is. I got lucky on 10. I hit it a bit further left than I wanted but I was fortunate that I didn't really have anything blocking my line to the pin. I just didn't hit a very good second shot. The lie was a little bit scruffy, but there's no excuse not to get it on the green.

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