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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 15, 2019

Rory McIlroy

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

THE MODERATOR: Like to welcome second-round co-leader Rory McIlroy into the interview room here at TPC Sawgrass. Great playing, 3-under in your final three holes, 7-under 65. Just provide some comments on your second round.

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I said I didn't know where my ball finished up on 18 after the tee shot, and I said to my caddie, Harry, regardless of what we do here, it's been a pretty good day since that bogey at the 1st. You know, I felt like I came back well. I hit driver off the first because I saw Phil do it, and I put myself out of position a little bit and made bogey there. I was a little mad at myself. But stayed calm, made a birdie at the second, made some pars on tough holes on the front nine, and then once I got the birdie to go in on the eighth hole, it started a really nice run of golf.

Just another good day on the course. I did everything pretty much the way I wanted to, and yeah, look, I'm really happy with the way everything is. My attitude has been great all year, and that's the one thing I've been trying to focus on the most.

THE MODERATOR: Five top 10s this season; what would it mean to get a win at THE PLAYERS Championship?

RORY MCILROY: I mean, look, it would be wonderful, but I think it's too early to start talking about that. The course changed a lot from yesterday morning when we played to this afternoon, so I just have to concentrate on adapting and trying to figure out the way this golf course is playing, or is going to play over the next two days.

You know, winning is a byproduct of doing all the right things, and I feel like if I can continue to do those things well, hopefully I do end up with the trophy on Sunday, but there's a lot of golf to play before that.

Q. What did you hit for the second shot on 18, and was that a line you might not have attempted were you not in the midst of a good round?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, it was a pitching wedge. It was straight downwind. The wind was probably helping me a little bit move it from left to right. I felt comfortable with it. Harry was trying to talk me out of it, and I just -- I stepped over it a couple times, like no, I think I can do this. So yeah, I just opened up a wedge as much as I could and just took a swipe at it, and the ball sort of came out the way I thought it would, and I think, as well, out of the pin straw you can spin it a little bit more. You can get a little bit more friction.

I probably still would have played that shot regardless. I said to Roger Maltbie walking down the last, playing with Phil the last two days maybe inspired me to play a shot like that.

Q. Curious on that shot, depending on the circumstances when you get into trees, is your first inclination to look up or look down?
RORY MCILROY: Just look for a way out. But usually you look for a way forward. That would be my first thing is to try and -- how close can I get this ball to the green. And then you have to weigh up the risk of doing that, whether it's a small window you need to hit it through or how high can I launch this or how low can I keep this. But I've always been pretty good at visualizing certain flights and keeping it low.

Going back to TOUR Championship a few years ago, I hit a 3-iron out of the left trees on 18 in regulation and ran it up into the bunker there, and again, J.P., my caddie at the time, was trying to talk me out of it. But I just -- I can see those shots, and I feel pretty comfortable playing them.

Q. On the other part, has Harry ever won an argument in his life on the golf course?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah -- with me or with -- yeah, with me, as well. He's not just my caddie, he's my best friend. Yeah, we don't argue too much. But he trusted that I could see the shot, and he said, okay, if you see it, go ahead and execute it.

Q. Even though it's early to talk about winning, with the way your form has been and your attitude has been, how much do you need a win to reinforce how that's all been going so far as you move forward here?
RORY MCILROY: I just need to keep seeing red numbers. That's all I need to keep seeing. I don't need a win. I'm not putting myself under pressure to -- again, winning is a byproduct of doing all the things that I'm doing well. If you look at my driving stats, how I'm hitting my irons, all that adds up to hopefully shooting the best score or the lowest score of the week. So that's how I need to approach it. It's not -- if I just focus on winning, what goes into that? That's not -- yes, that's the end goal, but there's so many different little mini-goals you need to accomplish to get to that point.

Q. How much does it matter to you who you're paired with in the final group, and if it does, what does being paired with Tommy tomorrow do for bringing energy, bringing juice, whatever it is you want to call it?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I mean, look, I definitely think you've got comfortable pairings and pairings that maybe aren't so -- different styles of play, different paces of play. You know, I loved playing with Dustin the final round of Mexico because we both play so fast.

Yeah, it shouldn't really matter, but sometimes it does, just -- and it's more -- sometimes the style if I'm playing with a guy that hits it much shorter than me and I'm up there waiting on your second shot, and it's just the cadence of the round or the rhythm and just trying to get into the rhythm of -- because I can never play at the pace I want to, so I always have to adapt and play at the pace of who I'm playing with. So it's just a matter of getting into that rhythm early.

Q. Do you like the potential rhythm and pace of playing with Tommy?
RORY MCILROY: It depends how the guys playing in front of us are going in terms of like how much we're going to wait, I guess. But I do, I'm looking forward to playing with Tommy. We get on really well. Our caddies get on very well. So it'll be a comfortable pairing in that regard, in terms of we will be relaxed.

Q. After two almost birdies at 14 and 15, did that make you want to be more aggressive on your second shot at 16, or had you already moved past that?
RORY MCILROY: No, not really. It was a perfect number on 16. I guess that was my -- it was a perfect 4-iron. It was 215 to the front, 222 to the hole, and it was back into the wind. I was hitting 4-irons on the range warming up today, 217 was sort of like the average they were going, so I just thought it was a perfect 4-iron. The wind was helping it a little bit from right to left, so I didn't really have to worry about the trouble on the right. I could just start it in the middle of the green and let it come back.

So it was just a perfect yardage to go ahead and be aggressive with it. But the two holes before that had no bearing on how I hit that shot.

Q. Why do you think it was so slow out there the last two days? Felt slower than recent years is all I'm saying.
RORY MCILROY: Because they don't do anything about it. They -- it's become somewhat of an epidemic on TOUR. Look, it's our livelihoods, and people are going to take their time, and as the course dries up and gets firmer and gets tougher, guys are going to take their time, but the fact that someone didn't finish yesterday, just being through daylight savings and the tee times and someone had to come out today because there wasn't enough light to finish, I mean, that's unacceptable. I mean, what time is it right now, 7:35? Yeah, so what's -- this is five hours 40 after our tee time, so say it was -- it shouldn't take -- I get that it can take five hours to play out there, but it shouldn't take any over that.

Honestly, I think they should just being a little tougher and start penalizing shots earlier, and that would be an easy way to fix it.

Q. How much of an adjustment is it playing Bay Hill where it's not overseeded and coming over here it's a softer green? And the second question is you talk about the difference between yesterday morning to this afternoon; how are the firmness of the greens and also with a lot of traffic on the greens, the smoothness of the greens?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, well, the good thing is we can tap down spike marks down, so that shouldn't make a difference. But I mean, the contrast between playing yesterday morning and this afternoon, it was more like Bay Hill this afternoon than it was like yesterday morning here at Sawgrass. So the greens -- yes, the fairways and the rough and the tee boxes are overseeded and the greens for a tiny part were, too. But with all the traffic on the greens, they just -- they're Bermuda. Again, it's all about overseed, the poa or whatever they overseeded with is completely gone out of them, and they're just Bermudagrass greens again. So that was a huge difference between yesterday and today.

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