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DELL TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPIONSHIP

August 30, 2018

Rory McIlroy

Boston, Massachusetts

DOUG MILNE: I'd like to welcome the 2012 and '16 Dell Technologies Championship winner, Rory McIlroy. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes.

It was after the 2016 that you wound up going on to win the FedExCup. Coming into the week, 28th in the standings. So with that said, your history here, and being inside the top-30, just some thoughts on being back this week at a place you're so familiar with.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, it's good to be back. I've had some really good memories here in Boston, two good wins that have set me up for a win at the FedExCup, which I was able to win in '16.

Yeah, it's a golf course we all know. There's been a couple of changes over the last couple of years. 12 and 13 are a little bit different. But it's basically the same golf course we came back to each and every year. It's a good test. If you play well, you can make a lot of birdies and you can get on runs. I feel like I've played well here because of that, the par-5s, the short par-4s, the bentgrass greens, I seem to putt better on those. So I'm excited to get back.

I took last week off to sort of work on my game and try to feel ready for the next few weeks. And I feel like that went pretty well. And I'm actually pleasantly surprised I didn't drop more in the FedExCup, I thought from 21 I was going to drop outside the top-30. But I was able to hold my position pretty well. I feel like I'm in a decent position coming into this week.

Q. Seven of the 11 years someone has won two of the playoffs, including yourself twice. Why do you think that is?
RORY McILROY: I think that's what the playoffs make you do or if someone gets hot, it's basically like one long tournament, instead of four -- obviously it's four separate ones, but like I remember I think last -- maybe last time when I won here, we went straight in. But definitely I won here and Crooked Stick back-to-back. And it's like you finish on Monday, you sort of have a day off Tuesday, then Wednesday a Pro Am, throwing you straight back into it. It's almost like a continuous tournament. And it will feel like this again this year, obviously with this ending Monday and Philadelphia coming straight after.

I think guys sort of get confidence, they can get on runs, they can get going. Whether that be myself or Billy Horschel in 14 or whoever it is. I think that's why -- some guys just, you know, get better as the season goes on, and they start to play well and they see some putts going in, they start to hit better shots, they get confidence from it. And that's sort of what it's been like for me.

In '16 I was having a pretty good year, but -- it was okay. But once I got the win here it sort of gave me a spark to go forward and obviously win The TOUR Championship and the FedExCup.

Q. So momentum is a tangible thing in golf that you can feel?
RORY McILROY: I think so. I think when you see -- when you're making birdies and you see putts drop I think your mindset changes somewhat. And that's all you can see. And that's definitely how it's felt for me when I've gone on some of these FedExCup runs.

Q. Last year you had talked about maybe not playing the first event, mostly because of the rib, I guess. But you did because you were the defending champion of the FedExCup. So taking last week off, was what happened last year, are you following through on what your instinct told you last year or is it merely recharging and remaining fresh and working on your game?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, honestly, Karen, it was more just to work on my game. I didn't feel -- I mean it's been a pretty long season. But I just -- I played well for three rounds at Firestone. I didn't play well when I needed to the fourth round when I was in the final group.

And then I didn't play very well at St. Louis, and that was all to do with swing mechanics and technique. I just needed to have a couple of weeks off and sort of assess where I was at and what I needed to do to improve and go forward.

So I worked for ten days with Michael Bannon down in Florida. We worked on a few things, sort of looking back at old video all the way back to when I was 16 and sort of what I've done well in my swing throughout the years. And just sort of trying to get back to that, I guess.

Q. A quick follow, I only saw 3, 16, 17 and 18, but it looked like you were hitting it well?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I feel like I made quite a bit of progress last week. It feels good, and it's not as if we're trying to reinvent the wheel, we're just trying to go back to stuff I've done before. And even after the PGA, looking at the statistics, all my long game stats aren't as good as they should be. I think I'm like 6th in strokes in short game this year. I can't remember the last time I saw a chipping green, I've given myself more opportunities to chip on the course, which isn't a good thing. But the stats for me are just a little bit skewed, so I'm just trying to get back to what my game usually is.

Q. Can you talk about Tiger in general, just how long he's been doing it? And specifically how well he's been playing this year? And what does it mean to have Tiger back?
RORY McILROY: It's great. It's great for the game that Tiger is back. The run that he gave at Carnoustie and Bellerive, it was exciting. It was exciting to be a part of it at Carnoustie and it was exciting to sort of watch.

I finished quite a bit ahead of the leaders at St. Louis so it was -- the last two majors of the year were very exciting. There was a lot of guys in there sort of vying for the tournament and Tiger was in there, which always adds an extra element.

I think more than anyone else he is surprised at how well he's played so quickly coming back. I remember sitting down and having lunch with him last March. And he wasn't swinging. He wasn't playing. He was just -- he just started to walk again. To think of where he was then to now and it's just over a year, it's incredible.

So I've kept saying this, and I've been consistent with this, everyone just needs to give him time because you're not going to be the same person or player after four back surgeries and after everything he's dealt with. I think what he's done is phenomenal. I feel very lucky to be a part of golf because of him and because of all the other great players that are around. He just adds an extra element to the game that no one else can bring.

Q. Just a little bit more about what you like about coming here and competing in Boston?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, Irish helps (laughter.) That definitely is an advantage. I feel like a lot of people pull for me here. But I've always felt good here. I've played a bit more in the sort of New England area in the past few years, playing travelers down the road. I like it. It's my sort of golf course. It's sort of tree-lined. It's familiar to me. It's bent greens, it's everything that I feel like I do well. So I love coming here. It's a golf course that's served me well over the years.

Q. Could you talk about the pacing, all of these events that are coming, and after The TOUR Championship you're going to move right into Ryder Cup play at that point. Are you doing anything special in terms of how you're pacing yourself? You took last week off. As a follow-up to that, have you said anything to people on the European team about pacing and getting ready for the Ryder Cup matches coming up?
RORY McILROY: No, for me I think it's a nice -- we're playing these next two weeks, and these two weeks are sort of very much back-to-back. This tournament finishes on Monday and you're straight into the next one. It's sort of condensed. And then we have another week off where people can recharge. The guys that make it to Atlanta, we have Atlanta and straight over to Europe.

But different people work in different ways. And what works for me might not necessarily work for someone else. So I'm not going to say that Jon Rahm or whoever, you should really doing this or that, he knows what works for him, as long as we all are playing good golf. Ryder Cup is a long week and it's an exhausting week, and if you have to play five matches, you feel it at the end. But hopefully that will be worth it.

But really even the week off last week, it wasn't with an eye ahead to that, it was more just to try to get my game in good shape for these next few weeks.

Q. You touched on this briefly, but can you elaborate on your feelings regarding the elimination of that feisty bunker on 12?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it just wasn't -- it's funny, so that bunker on 12 I can see how it worked with how wide the fairway was. And now that they've taken that fairway away -- they've taken that bunker away, the fairway is 70 yards wide. So they almost need to figure out, okay, are we going to make this sort of a slight dogleg left or a slight dogleg right. Guys are going to be going up the left side. Justin Thomas went up the 13th fairway last year. It's sort of a nothing tee shot without the bunker, where last year at least it made you do something. So I think there's probably still a couple of tweaks made to that hole to make it perfect.

Q. How much going into your decision to take last week off was recharging yourself physically and how much was it recharging mentally, emotionally at the end of the season, knowing you've got the Tour coming up? What can you recognize in yourself and your game that a week off is probably going to be the best thing because I noticed this?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, honestly physically more than mentally. I mean mentally it gets to you when you aren't hitting the golf shots you want to hit. And you're visualizing what you want to do with the golf ball and the ball is not doing that. So mentally that can be frustrating. But more physically. I know why the golf ball is doing what it's doing. And it's just a matter of getting the reps away from tournament play. Because it feels like this year, because I've played a little bit more, I think this is going to be my 20th, 20th or 21st event. I've played more this year than I have in the last few years. And it's always been play a couple of tournaments, have a week off. But I might want to take two days off at the start of that week off and then get back into it. But you have a few days to work on it but then you're back into competitive mode and you need to get back on the course and score. It doesn't matter how your swing looks as long as it's efficient and you can repeat it.

But for me it was just getting too inconsistent, so I needed that ten-day window where I'd say for a seven-day period I didn't hit a golf ball without doing the drill that I'm going to do. Like I didn't do it without -- it wasn't a full motion swing, it was just here, there, down (indicating.) So I did that for seven days just to try to ingrain the move. And I feel like I haven't had a period this year where I could do that. That was really the reason I needed to take that time off.

Q. Do you think a lot of people have trouble appreciating how difficult it is at this level for you to make changes or adjustments as you get into a habit at the end of the season, like an injury brought on, it's not easy, I would imagine?
RORY McILROY: No, it's not, because we hit so many golf balls doing one thing, anyway. I'm trying to get back to what I used to do. But what I used to do feels so foreign to me right now, because I've hit so many golf balls and ingrained the move I don't want to make. You need to feel like you're doing the opposite of what you've been doing and that's hard. Someone like Faldo in the late '80s, said -- whenever it was when he changed his swing, I don't care what I'm going to shoot, I'm just going to stick with this, I'm going to make this swing change, if it takes me three years, that's what it takes me. I can't do that. Mentally that would just be very challenging for me. So I just need these little breaks where I can work on my swing and work on my game going into important parts of the season, like we have now.

Q. Just curious, in going back on these videotapes you talked about earlier, what did you see in yourself as a 16 year old? And in watching that videotape, did anything sort of stuck out? And did you cringe at any time watching the videotapes?
RORY McILROY: No, I was very impressed. I was like if that was a 16 year old in front of me today I'd say you're going to do pretty good.

It was more so, I guess, when I was that age the move that I'm trying to get back to was more exaggerated at that point, steepened the shaft very much on the way back, shallowed it coming down. Now it's shallow coming back, and steepened coming down, that's why I get two-way misses left and right. It was just a matter of just trying to see certain periods of my career where I've not just -- there's been times where I've swung it great but I've played terrible. But there's been times where I it swung well and the results have followed on from that.

It's just trying to look at video. And it was a good thing for me because it made me realize, okay -- because I've been sort of fighting with Michael on this for awhile. So it made me realize, okay, I can do this again. It was good to see all that video. And even just watching it you start to feel the feelings that you might need to get back into those positions. So it was a beneficial week. And Michael and I hadn't had more than four days in a row together away from a golf tournament since January. So it was -- we needed to spend a bit more time together and try to figure this out. And I thought the last couple of weeks was a perfect time to start doing it.

Q. You're in a unique position in that you've gotten to know two of the individual sport goats in Roger and Tiger. Is there anything that you see that they share in their approach to their sports?
RORY McILROY: Not really. I guess I would compare Tiger more to Rafa, if you were trying to compare a golfer. He's just sheer determination. Will to win. Grit. That's who I would compare Tiger to. And some people make the argument that Rafa would be -- he's up there as being -- he's won 17. His win/loss record against Roger is pretty good. His victories on other surfaces are very good. You can make an argument. Anyway, we're not talking about tennis, we're talking about golf.

But I think I would compare Rafa to Tiger in terms of that. Their determination and their sheer will to win is I guess sort of unrivaled in their sports.

Q. Maybe I should have said Serena?
RORY McILROY: Serena, same thing, I watched a little bit of her last night and it's just like she's just so determined to win. It's inspiring, especially after all that she's been through.

Q. When you hear the name Thomas Bjorn, what's the first thing that comes to mind and why?
RORY McILROY: So Thomas and I didn't get off to a very good start. I played with Thomas in the 2007 Madrid Masters. And we got off to a bit of a rocky start. I was a cocky 18 year old, he was a veteran. I might have shown a couple of bits of bad etiquette from time to time, and Thomas let me know about it. I thought this guy was a -- whatever (laughter).

And then we sort of hugged it out the next week on the range in Portugal. And we've been -- we've actually been really good friends ever since. So Thomas is very -- he's very principled, he always tries to do the right thing. For being quite a big and sort of -- being an intimidating sort of character, he's actually quite sensitive. He's quite a big softy.

I've gotten to know him quite a lot over the years, but obviously a little bit closer the last couple as we've gotten closer to the Ryder Cup. But Thomas is a great guy. He's going to be a great captain. I chatted with him on the phone twice last week, just talking about a few things. He's keeping everyone in the loop. So far with the whole process he's been first class.

Q. I'd love to hear what happened?
RORY McILROY: I stepped on his through line on one hole. So -- which was my mistake. And the next hole, very next hole, it was a drivable par 4, but it had a dip in the middle, so I went to the green. And I hit into the front bunker. And Thomas hit an iron on top of the hill and hit in. I couldn't see where he was up on top of the hill. I was like right in his line between him and the flag. So I was just this oblivious 18 year old, trying to get my Tour card, and obviously he didn't take that too well. It was fine.

Q. Was he intimidating?
RORY McILROY: I didn't know him at that point. Yeah, he's a much larger man than I am.

Q. I know that Augusta is obviously a long way away. But with the Tour schedule wrapping up at least over here in a couple of weeks, can you just take us through what kind of mental and physical preparation you're envisioning for yourself this off-season?
RORY McILROY: I won't have an off-season. I'm going to China, South Africa and Dubai after. So I've got a lot of travel coming up. My first tournament of the year starts on the third of January.

I don't know, one thing about golf is I would love if we had -- and that's obviously self-inflicted. I'm a member of the European Tour, and I have to fulfill what I need to do over there, also. The end of November is my last week and then I tee it up again in five weeks time. And obviously you have Christmas and December and all sorts after that. I'll probably give myself a couple of weeks off, sort of recharge. And leading up to Christmas I'm going to have to start prepping again and getting ready for the new season. I haven't even thought about Augusta at this point, and I probably won't until March time.

Q. You talk about looking at the video when you were younger. Have you talked to any other players who have gone through what you've gone through this year where you played well and then one round you haven't and trying to figure that out? Have you talked to any players, maybe like Tiger about it?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I mean Tiger and I -- a lot of our conversation is about the golf swing and talking about it. And I think he has a better understanding of his swing because he isn't working with a coach. And he's really -- when he was coming back, he looked at all his old video. We talked about that a little bit and just trying to almost like pick parts out of certain swings that he likes and try to sort of blend them together.

For me it's very simple. I haven't talked to anyone about it. I sort of talk to my team and talk to Michael and just try to figure it out like that way. But, no, it's not a huge -- I mean it's a matter of getting the club sort of more in front of me than behind me in the backswing and then it all sort of seems to take care of itself from there.

Q. I know you started at such a young age in golf. I wanted to know if you as a kid played any other sports or even now if you're able to dabble in anything else to take your mind off golf when you get free time?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I tried to play other sports when I was a kid. I don't know how good I was at them. Yeah, I played a little bit of soccer, rugby, a little bit of tennis. Yeah, so that was really -- that was really it.

I did play soccer up until a couple of years ago and then that's to be continued (laughter.) Actually, we just bought a new house and there's a tennis court there, so I might try to start hitting tennis balls again and get back into it. Golf takes up most of my day, so there's not much time for anything else.

DOUG MILNE: Wish you the best of luck this week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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