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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 21, 2018

Rory McIlroy

Cromwell, Connecticut

Q. Rory, I know that wasn't the finish you were looking for, but based on the last two rounds you've played at this course, you've got it pretty well figured out at this point?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, a couple of 64s back-to-back is quite nice. Yeah, I played really well today. I feel like the work that I did over the weekend sort of started to pay off already. It was nice to see the shots I was playing right there. Being able to work the ball both ways was something I wasn't quite as comfortable doing last week.

Obviously, you never want to miss a cut in a major, but it might have been a blessing in disguise for the rest of the year.

Q. The round kind of leveled off in the middle, but 13, 14, and 15, you really picked it up there.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I did. It was nice. I thought I had so many chances for birdies, and it was nice to finally get one on 13 after missing a few chances, and then 14 and 15 was nice as well. I felt like I had a couple of chances coming in too, but it's only the first day. I would have taken that before I went off today.

Q. How did you like the crowd? It was good and behind you, lot of noise today.
RORY McILROY: It was good. Yeah, that was one of the things I really liked about this event last year was one of the reasons I came back. You know, the community really get behind the event and everyone made me feel very welcome.

Q. Some of the guys that came off the course today said the way the back nine is playing could set up a lot of drama on Sunday afternoon and keep a lot of people in contention right down.
RORY McILROY: For sure. The green on 15 is getting pretty firm, and anything sort of middle of that green or left side of that green has a chance to go in the water. Then, yeah, with a little bit of wind, you get up on that 17th tee, and it's not the easiest tee shot in the world. Yeah, no matter what the conditions, the last few holes here always seem to produce some drama.

Q. I saw you talking with your caddie a few times. Are you enjoying the team work with him?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, Harry's my best friend, really. He was the best man at my wedding, and I'm going to be the best man at his. So we've known each other for such a long time. It's nice that it feels like real team work. I'm not going to get mad at him. We do all the numbers together, and every decision we make is really a sort of team effort.

So, yeah, obviously he's been on the bag not just quite a year yet, just under a year, but it's been really enjoyable.

Q. You've hit a lot of balls over the weekend and the first couple of days here. Is there something that clicked with your swing?
RORY McILROY: Sort of. I mean, I'm trying to get back to the way I swung in sort of 2010, 2011. It's sort of hard because my body has changed quite a bit since then and the feelings I have. But the feeling I have right now is the feeling I had in the middle of 2009. So it's just trying to go back, and, okay, I was swinging it really well then. What was I doing? What was I thinking about? What was the focus on the swing? Just trying to rack your brain to recreate feelings that you had back then.

That's basically what I did over the weekend. I got a feeling that really sort of resonated with me and brought me back to a time when I was swinging it really well, and just sort of went with that feeling.

Q. Is there an extra sense of satisfaction to get off to a strong start today given how quickly things got away from you last week?
RORY McILROY: A little bit. I mean, look, Thursday was -- I think it wasn't a normal day. It was tough. You just needed to hang in there. Anything around 75, 76 would have kept you in the golf tournament as Brooks proved shooting 75. So I didn't need to play that differently on Thursday, I just needed to hang in there a little bit more, hole some putts, get some momentum going.

But then on Friday over there I hit 17 of 18 greens. I did a lot of similar things to what I did today. It's just a completely different animal. Like it's nice to get off to a good start here. But as I keep saying, I'm not playing that differently now than I did last Thursday, and it's a 16-shot difference.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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