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THE HONDA CLASSIC

February 24, 2016

Rory McIlroy

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

JOHN BUSH: Welcome back to the Honda Classic. Get some comments on being here this week.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, excited to be back here. Obviously I've had some good performances here in the past with the win and the playoff in 2014. Bit of a home game for me this week, obviously only living a couple minutes down the road. Any time you can play a tournament and sleep in your own bed is always nice, so glad to be back.

It was nice to have a look at the golf course. The course is looking really good. It's looking as good as it has done ever I think, or since they redid a few of the holes a couple years ago and re-laid the fairways. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much overnight, since the course, it's pretty soft out there. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much overnight so it doesn't soften it up even more.

Yeah, excited to be back here and looking forward to getting going tomorrow.

Q. You've had some up-and-downs in this tournament. Is that the nature of the course, the wind?
RORY McILROY: I think it's the nature of me (laughing). Yeah, it's one of these golf courses that if you're slightly off, it can really magnify your misses a little bit, and it can make you feel as if you're playing worse than what you actually are.

Last year, obviously with the missed the cut; but yeah, I feel if you're in control of your golf game, it's one of these courses that you can play well at and you can give yourself plenty of opportunities, and it's not like you need to go crazy low here to be in contention. But it is, it's a tough golf course, and with some of the tough conditions we can get here, it is one of the more challenging venues that we play every year.

Q. How do you measure progress at this time of the year?
RORY McILROY: You always want to win. Progress is winning and seeing how you perform under pressure. But at the same time, progress is how you're feeling with your game; if you feel like you can see improvements.

And I think different guys view progress differently, as well. Some are very results-based and some of more in like the process and what they are doing, if they are hitting it well; if there are certain areas of their games they want to work on.

I guess for me at the minute, progress is the first one, is results-based. Because I feel like I'm playing well. I feel like my game is in good shape. So it's going out there and doing it when it matters.

I feel this year, I've made some good strides forward, and you know, was looking good for most of the week last week and had a bad finish, but I feel like my game's there. And that's the great thing about golf. This stretch of golf we've got coming up, there's always next week. If you do stumble, there's the next week to pick yourself back up and to have an opportunity to play well here.

Q. Going back to Sunday, how long did it take for you to get over that?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I reflected a good bit about the round on Sunday night and on Monday. It was one of those things where I went from -- I was 2-under early in the round to over par after 7. So I felt from 7, I was chasing it. On that golf course, I made a decent par on 8. I had a good look on 9.

And then I'm thinking, going on to the 10th tee, if I can make two birdies in these next two holes, get it back to 11-under for the tournament, I'm still right in there.

Walking to 12 tee, instead of being 11-under, I'm 8-under and all I'm doing then is trying to go for pins and I started to short-side myself. The score probably got away from me because of that. So I didn't dwell on it too much because I knew that it was more the circumstances I put myself in in the middle of the round is why I sort of let it get away from me.

I didn't think about it too much. I know my game is in good shape and it's there and hope to get into contention again this week.

Q. What do you remember about when you won?
RORY McILROY: When I won here in 2012, all the talk for me was trying to get to No. 1 in the world. I had a chance in the final in the Match Play the week before against Hunter and I didn't.

It was a week for me, I didn't think about anything else but winning because that's what I wanted to achieve. Winning was -- getting to world No. 1 was a byproduct of winning the tournament. But I was so focused on that that I didn't think about anything else. Mentally, I was prepared to win and that's what I was going to do.

It was probably one of my better Sunday performances coming down the stretch with a few guys putting pressure on me. I'll always remember -- there's a few moments in my career that I feel like to this point, I'll always remember and getting to No. 1 for the first time here I'll certainly remember.

Q. Where is your mind-set on getting to No. 1 now?
RORY McILROY: I want to get there as soon as I can and I feel like the next few weeks, there's opportunities to gain a lot of good World Ranking points and get up there. But you know, again, it's winning tournaments and playing well takes care of all that stuff.

So I've just got to focus on that and focus on trying to win golf tournaments. I've got four or five more -- four more golf tournaments before Augusta I guess. So it's a good run coming up and I want to play well, and I want to build up to this run into Augusta so I'm really confident going into sort of the meat of the season.

Q. Why do you think you've been more of a streaky putter at times?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I don't know, I guess I haven't dwelled on it that much. I've almost accepted the fact that I'm probably going to be a streaky putter, which is fine. It's served me well up until this point; when I'm on, I hole putts and it's good. And when I don't -- some weeks I struggle to hole putts, I still feel like I've got a good chance to win.

But yeah, it's always, for me, putting, it's a bit of a journey for me and trying to figure out, you know, how I'm thinking and what I'm feeling when I putt well and what I'm maybe feeling and thinking when I don't putt so well.

I feel like technique-wise, I'm able to start the ball on line. I feel like I can read greens pretty well. So I think it's more of a mental thing, more mentally. There's some putts I stand over that I know I'm going to hole. And there's some putts I stand over that I just feel uncomfortable and you know that you're just not. So I think mostly it's all mental for me.

Q. Did you find some keys to putting Augusta better last year? You played the last few rounds extremely well.
RORY McILROY: I felt like I just left my approach shots and balls in the best areas to putt from. It's one of those golf courses where you really need to leave yourself below the hole a lot so that you can be aggressive with your putts.

I feel the biggest thing for Augusta with me was playing par 5s well. I learned from 2014 where I think I played the par 5s in even par, I played them in 12- or 14-under last year, so it made a big difference. I feel like if I can go into Augusta knowing what my game plan is and knowing if I can attack the par 5s and if I can play them well, it will give me a better chance to win.

Q. (Inaudible.)
RORY McILROY: He played good. I gave him a few tips around there. He's a big golf fan. He's always wanting to learn and always trying to get better. So it was good fun and he's very knowledgeable about the game. It was good fun being out there with him.

Q. Do you use this as an unofficial first week of Masters prep?
RORY McILROY: A little bit. I feel like it's disrespectful to the individual tournament if you're not thinking 100 percent on the tournament that you're playing in. And it's not like I'm standing on any tee box here and imagining I'm hitting a shot at Augusta. I'm trying to play this golf course and win this tournament.

But it's hard to say that it's not on my mind. The Masters is obviously not that far away, so when it's the first major of the year and you want to make sure your game is in good shape leading up to it. Until the end of the Match Play in Texas, I'll try to play each tournament as its own individual tournament and go up to Augusta for maybe a couple days after that, and that's when I will really start to prep for Augusta.

Q. What kind of difference does it make, or if it does at all, this build-up to the Masters, when you are at the moment sharing a spotlight with other players, instead of having everything on you leading up to Augusta?
RORY McILROY: It doesn't feel that different to last year. I'm still going in there with the same objective and same mind-set and trying to achieve the same thing. I don't think it makes much of a difference at all, whether I'm going in there and being talked about or if I'm not, because I'm still feeling the same things that I'm thinking about. Maybe I'm putting pressure on myself, but I know what it would mean to me and I know what it would mean to my career.

So I don't feel like being singled out makes any difference than being part of a group or a narrative that is going into it.

Q. Does it matter you're going in last year having won two straight majors or this year --
RORY McILROY: I think the one thing that I'm glad of is having the experience of last year and knowing what I'm going to feel like or what I maybe didn't do so well or what I did do well. So having that experience of last year and going into the tournament, knowing that I can win the career Grand Slam and not maybe being able to do it, but maybe approaching things differently or the same, the things that worked well.

So I think having that year or that week of experience is going to help.

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