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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDEJune 2, 2016Rory McIlroyDublin, Ohio Q. You hit the ball beautifully. In fact, you got a half dozen birdies out there, taking advantage of your length off the tee? RORY McILROY: Yeah, six birdies is great, but the five drop shots was the rest of the story. I'm playing -- there's enough good in there. I'm driving the ball well. I'm putting myself in good position off the tee, and I'm making the birdies. I just need to limit the mistakes. Today I made too many. Hopefully, that's the first round out of the way, and I was still able to salvage something under par, so it was okay in the end. Q. You understand the big story is two weeks ago you win the Irish Open left hand low, and you're here putting conventional. The reason for the change? RORY McILROY: I had 127 putts the week that I won the Irish Open. So it's not as if I putted particularly well that week. I won that golf tournament with my ball striking alone. I just felt like it was time to -- you know, I thought about it for a while, and I was messing around on the putting green over the weekend. Just went back to the grip and really trying to focus on the basics like setup and eye position and ball position and stuff like that, alignment. So I feel like, if I can put good structures like that in place, there's no reason for me to go with anything but with what I've sort of had before. Q. Rory, nice way to finish, birdie, birdie, to get it into red figures, especially when you're looking at the board, and we see Dustin Johnson up there 9 under. RORY McILROY: Yeah, exactly. I knew I just needed to try to salvage something out of that round because I felt like I was playing well enough to. At the end of the day, I made six birdies out there, but I had five dropped shots. I felt like I hit it well enough off the tee to get it close enough to the pins, and most of the time I did that. But I just hit a few loose shots, and that's what cost me today. Hopefully, I've got all them out of my system, and I can go around over the next three days and play the golf that I know that I can play. Q. Now, you win the Irish Open with the left hand low. Why the decision to come in here conventional? Actually, even though you have a couple of hard lip outs and the score could have been much better, I thought you looked very comfortable conventional. RORY McILROY: Yeah, conventional is what I've done my whole career. I won the Irish Open a couple of weeks ago with 127 putts for the week, so I didn't putt particularly well. I think I had 32 putts the first three days and 31 putts on Sunday. So my ball striking was what won me that tournament. I knew I needed to make a change, and I felt like my pace wasn't really good with left hand low, especially going into this week, obviously, the greens are fast. But then going into Oakmont, the greens are so fast there, and you have to have so much feel and touch. I felt like just going back to conventional was going to give me the best chance here and obviously there. Q. Very important stretch of the schedule coming up. Are you going to play a lot of golf in the next ten weeks? RORY McILROY: I'm playing a lot of golf. I'm playing seven of the next ten or something like that. I think everyone is playing the same schedule for now, sort of week on and week off until the FedExCup. And then you've got FedExCup and Ryder Cup. It's going to be a long summer, but I'm looking forward to it. Q. Rory, a nice finish to your round to get it into red figures. Just talk about your day. RORY McILROY: Yeah, it was good. I was happy to salvage something out of the round. It felt like every time I hit a birdie, I made a bogey. So, yeah, it was nice. I think I hit 11 fairways, and so I drove it well enough to put myself in position to go at pins and hit greens. I just made a few too many mistakes out there. It's penal if you don't hit the fairway on this course, it really can punish you. The fairway bunkers are pretty deep. The rough's pretty thick. But I feel off the tee I was good and gave myself quite a few chances. I made six birdies. So the birdies were out there. I just need to, as I said, limit the mistakes. Q. Rory, in that same way that your driving can be demoralizing to a playing competitor, can Jordan's putting make it hard to like stay in your own bubble, when he's scrambling from all over? RORY McILROY: Justin and I said, walking off the 17th green, so the 8th hole, he had 18 putts for his last 17 competitive holes. It's impressive, yeah. It's all no one shot or one part of the game is more important than the other. A shot is a shot, whether it's a putt or a drive. They're all important. We get it done different ways, but we get it done. So I think that's the most important thing. Q. Speaking of putting, you switched back to conventional. RORY McILROY: 127 putts for the week at the Irish Open. I had 32 putts on Saturday and 31 putts on Sunday. Any other week, you're not going to be doing too well. I had a really good ball striking week that week. I hit a lot of fairways and made a lot of greens, and that's what made that tournament. I feel like my pace was a little off left hand low, and I feel like coming into golf courses like here where the greens are really quick, and obviously Oakmont where the greens were ridiculously fast, I felt like, to give myself the best chance of having a little bit more feel and a little bit more visualization and stuff, I just needed go back to what I've done for most of my career. Q. Is it something you took to right away? RORY McILROY: No, it felt sort of weird for the first 30 minutes. I started messing around with it on Friday, and then Saturday felt a little better. Sunday felt a little better, and then -- so I really -- I'm just trying to focus on -- This feels, after that 30 minutes or an hour, it feels normal. But I think the thing is -- one thing I did like about left hand low is it squared my shoulders up. So I'm really trying to focus on alignment and really setting up to the ball correctly each and every time and being really strict with that. And that's why I'm using the line on the ball again just to really -- and sometimes even on the course, it feels uncomfortable because -- you know, sometimes I don't feel like the line is aiming where it actually is. So I need to work on my -- I'm working on the mirror and working on the ball position and my eye position. So I'm trying to be really structured with that. I feel like, if I'm consistent with that, that will give me the best chance going forward. Q. Is it something you'll stick with? I mean, obviously, it sounds like you'll stick with it in the Open, but is it also something that's sort of just case dependent? RORY McILROY: I don't -- I don't think so. I mean, I've given left hand low a go. I won one tournament with it. I'm moving on. Q. Rory, what is it about putting that can be so perplexing? I mean, obviously, there's only a few who can hit it as well as you do, but yet putting seems to the average guy to be the easiest part in a game, yet it can be really bad -- RORY McILROY: I feel for me, the margins in putting are so fine, and that's the thing for me that I feel like the difference between having a good putting day and a bad putting day is very, very small. Where for me anyway, a fairway is 30 yards wide. I mean, you can fit a million golf balls in a row that length -- that width of the fairway, where in putting it's just a little bit finer than that. It's sort of -- it's a mental thing for me as well. But I feel like the way I'm put, I'm definitely on the right track, and I holed some really nice putts out there today, and I got some good feeling. Hopefully, I can continue to stick with it and see improvement. Q. Do you get help on reading putts much? Do you ask for help? RORY McILROY: Sometimes if I'm unsure. Most of the time, I do it on my own. I feel like I'm a pretty good green reader. That's why I'm using the line at the minute because at least it gives me -- I know if I hit a good putt or not, you see that line going end over end, and you know that you've hit a good putt. If it doesn't go in, either it's speed or you just misread it. Q. What was the first good putt you hit today where you felt, okay, that feels good, that seems normal? RORY McILROY: Probably the birdie putt on 12. Yeah, that was probably -- I was probably a little anxious over the first putt on 10 because that's the first time I've done it in competition for a while. Yeah, the birdie putt on 12 sort of settled me down. I felt like I putted pretty well after that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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