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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2017

Rory McIlroy

Cromwell, Connecticut

Q. Rory, still not sure of the outcome, but two competitive rounds. Are there any positives you can take away?
RORY McILROY: Not many that I can see right now. I just hope I get another two rounds to play. Try to knock a little bit of the rust out of my game.

Felt pretty good yesterday. Today with the way the conditions were, I think it was tricky in the wind, and in those conditions your weaknesses or parts of your game you need to work on are going to show up and sort of caught me up a few times today. Yeah, just try to see what happens here. Hopefully the cut stays at even par and I get another couple competitive rounds over the weekend.

Q. Can you explain what happened on that shot on 18, that second shot?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, my right foot completely came out from under me. Obviously there was a tiny bit of drizzle. Maybe a little bit of surface water. Just, I don't know. It was weird. As soon as I started down, I just felt it and I couldn't stop. I couldn't see it. I hit that much behind the ball, so not a very nice shot to finish with.

Q. You went in the water on 13, what's going through your mind at that point? You obviously rebounded with a terrific shot.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, that would have been a good birdie if I had made that. Yeah, I mean, at that point I'd just made two bogeys. But I knew that I got it up far enough. I was lucky enough that I bounced on the right side of the hazard line so I could at least go for the green in three. I knew I hit a great shot, and I definitely would have walked away with a five.

I would have taken a five after the tee shot. Could have made birdie, but didn't. But follow that up with two good birdies on 14 and 15, I just hit a loose shot into 16, and obviously what happened at the last.

So, yeah. Just, as I said, I hope I get two more rounds just to try to get a couple of -- more than anything, just sort of learn where my game's at going into the next few weeks.

Q. What makes that 13th hole so difficult today?
RORY McILROY: Just straight into the wind. Yeah, it's tough. You can't really be left because there are bunkers. Then left of that you've got out of bounds, and obviously you can't go right. So it's a tee shot that you've got to stand up and hit a really committed golf shot, committed swing.

I think once you get your tee shot away, the hole opens up. But saying that, I mean, where I look back and saw where Jason and Patrick hit their second shots, and they were right where sort of Jim was where he had to chip on the green because where that pin is, it's very tricky. If you miss it anywhere right, it's hard to get your putt anywhere close to the hole. So it was a tricky pin position as well.

Q. Was it sort of you wanted to kick the cat or was it close?
RORY McILROY: I'd never harm an animal.

Q. Just figure of speech. You know that.
RORY McILROY: I know. Not really. I mean, I felt like I came back okay. As I said, there were a few loose shots out there. But, yeah, I just hoped I'd sort of wanted to not forget about today, but try to learn from it and hopefully play another couple of rounds to try to take something with me into this stretch over in Europe coming up.

Q. When you're trying to assess your game and you're on a brand-new course and it's the first time you're playing in this tournament, does that compound things? How does it affect?
RORY McILROY: Not particularly. I mean, I feel like this golf course sets up well for me. I think it was just the conditions. You know, it was windy, it was tricky. Sometimes the wind got up and then it laid down. It was hard to really commit to club selection or the shot you were going to play. So I was sort of caught in two minds a little bit out there at some points. Hit some loose shots because of it.

Q. You don't know what's going to happen, but the leader's only at 8-under par. If you make the cut, you were saying you're thinking about Europe. But do you feel like you're out of it?
RORY McILROY: If I play the next two days like I played today, I definitely am, yeah. I don't know. I'll see what happens tomorrow if I do play, but I won't be thinking about trying to win the tournament from there. I'll be thinking about trying to go and play a good, solid round of golf.

But we have seen here in the past guys going out and shooting a low score and getting themselves back into the tournament. But if that's to happen, obviously, first I need to make the cut, and second I need to play a lot better than I did today.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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