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WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAYMarch 26, 2019Rory McIlroyAustin, Texas NICK PARKER: We'd like to welcome 2015 champion here at the Dell Technologies Match Play, Rory McIlroy. Rory, just talk to us about what it's like to be back here in Austin. You've had a ton of success in this format and semifinals here in 2016, where you had the great match with Jason. RORY McILROY: Yeah, good to be back. I think I've always enjoyed the format. Match play is a very pure, virgin, or pure format of golf. It's probably basically how the game was invented. So, yeah, I'm happy to be back. I think you have to embrace this tournament for what it is. I think that's why I've had some success here. It is a little bit different than what we do week in, week out. And I think this golf course, it sets up well for match play. You can make a bunch of birdies, but you can obviously make quite a few mistakes as well, if you're playing aggressively. So, I'm looking forward to the week. 2016 feels like a long time ago. And when I got to the Sunday with Jason last couple of years haven't been quite so good, but trying to change that this week. Q. Why did you change to play more tournaments leading into the major part of the season this year? RORY McILROY: You know, I think you have to find that blend between being fresh but making sure at the same time that there's no rust. So being fresh, being prepared, being ready to play. I've had success both ways and I think it really just depends on how your mind is at that given time. And for me I feel like my best play over the last couple of years has been on the back of some decent runs, playing two, three tournaments in a row. And that's the reason why I've played quite a bit, not too much leading up to this part of the season. And that's why I want to keep playing. I think the golf season has got so long. You can basically play from the first week in January until the third week in December, if you want. So you have to take your little mini breaks throughout the season. Like I'm going to have three weeks off after the U.S. Open, after playing three weeks in a row. So all those little things go into it. And I think at the end of the day it's just a balance between you being fresh and being ready to play. Q. Paul Casey was just in here and he said he would prefer the old version of knockout match play versus the pool play now. Do you have a preference? RORY McILROY: I mean, if you wanted to go to the purest version of a match play tournament, then it would be straight knockout, but that's not feasible in today's age. You've got someone like Dell Technologies putting in tens of millions of dollars into this event, and you want to make sure that the marquee guys are around until at least Friday. I totally get that. I think it's a good thing for the Tour, a good thing for the sponsors, the partners. Obviously not so great for the players if they're going out on Friday with nothing to play for. But I think it works well. I'm a part of the PAC and we had a discussion about this tournament, and maybe some format going forward where it would be -- it would start with match play and go to stroke play. Just some sort of mixing it up a little bit. And I think I think the format is good. If there was one thing I would say about this tournament is that this is going to be a lot of guys' last tournament before going into Augusta. Whether that's desirable or not, I'm not quite sure. But in terms of the format of the tournament I like it. Q. Not your kind of week to kind of decompress, what was the most satisfying thing about getting it done at TPC Sawgrass? RORY McILROY: I don't know, probably just the shots down the stretch that I hit when I needed to hit. Looking back on it, it wasn't my best week of the year. My strokes gained was better in Mexico than it was at THE PLAYERS. So keeping things in perspective, that wasn't my best tournament of the year. My best tournament of the year was Mexico, but I didn't win that tournament. Yes, in this day and age it's about winning and losing and what have you done for me and all that stuff, but it wasn't my best tournament of the year. So I feel like I could have done some things differently. I got a little bit reactive with my attitude on Sunday afternoon. I missed a couple of putts and I could have responded better to those. It was another learning opportunity. I think that's the thing from Sunday, what can I learn to bring to the next event and trying to think about it rationally and logically, and not to get too caught up in the emotion of getting a trophy at the end. That was awesome. That was really nice. But there's a lot more that I got out of it just in terms of satisfaction. Q. I did want to ask you about your group, itself, this week, especially tomorrow you've got a pretty big hitter? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think I might have played with Luke a couple of times on Tour. But this golf course lends itself to being aggressive off the tee. I went against Peter Uihlein, and was beaten the first day. And I think as well against Soren Kjeldsen the year before. So it's imperative to win the first match. I've been on the wrong side of that the last couple of years. So trying to change that tomorrow. Q. How does your mental dynamic change in a match play event as opposed to stroke play? RORY McILROY: I think there's two different ways you can approach match play. You play the person that you're playing against or you play the course and you don't really react or respond to who you're playing against. I think if anything this is a great week to practice your attitude and how do you respond to someone making a birdie or chipping in or getting a lucky bounce. If you can treat all that the same and if you can respond the right way to those sorts of things that sets you up for -- it's like every match you play it's like feeling like you're playing in contention and you're playing with something on the line. So it's a good -- I don't want to call it a practice week but at the same time it's a good test and making sure that your head's in the right place. Q. To kind of follow-up on that, when you won at THE PLAYERS a couple of weeks ago, you said the P's, the patience, perspective, poise, and that has benefited you this year. Does that attitude still reflect here in this championship as well or does this shift at all? RORY McILROY: No, not at all. Am I going to be upset if I go out and shoot 7-under par for 17 holes tomorrow and lose? No, I played great golf. It's the nature of the beast. It is what it is. But the place that I'm at right now it doesn't just work for stroke play, match play, golf. It just works for most things in general. Yeah, I mean it's not something that I'm going to get away from just because it's a different format of the game. Q. Has this attitude shift that you've talked about freed you up on the course? RORY McILROY: Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Q. I want to follow up on you saying the dynamic of receiving a trophy at the end, right? When you're so close and you're playing so well but you're just not closing, and then not closing becomes a narrative. How do you maintain confidence that the road you're taking is the right path toward your best game? RORY McILROY: You don't listen, you don't read, you don't watch the narrative, first and foremost. It might be a narrative to some people but it wasn't a narrative to me. I'm giving over two and a half strokes a round on the rest of the field. So that was my narrative. My narrative is I'm playing some pretty good golf here. Just a matter of keep doing what I'm doing, keep thinking how I'm thinking. And again, it's not being defined by your wins and losses, that's the key. That's the secret of being freed up and not buying into narratives and not living and dying with every golf tournament or every shot. I think that's very important. Q. I guess you haven't read that you can get back to world No. 1 this week (laughter). Is that a big thing to you? RORY McILROY: No, not really. Big thing is winning my match tomorrow. I haven't been able to do that the last couple of years, is win my match on Wednesday. So that's the first step in the process. If I win seven matches this week, that would be awesome. But we'll see what happens. But, again, winning tournaments, getting No. 1, all those accolades, it's a by-product of doing all the little things right. And I feel like I'm doing the little things right. And step by step they will add up to all that stuff that other people find important. Q. I know this is incredibly disrespectful to your opponents in the pool, if you win the group and Tiger wins his group, you would be playing against each other. Is that something that excites you? RORY McILROY: There's a long way to go. I saw that Fitz was in my group, and Fitz and I have become pretty close over the last couple of years, living in Jupiter and practicing together. I texted him and said, let's make sure we both have something to play for on Friday. That's as far as I've thought ahead. Q. Europeans won the last three events in Florida and been crushing it in the Ryder Cup. Are you guys taking over the golf world? RORY McILROY: I think with Paul's win last week I think there's something like six or seven Europeans in the top 15 in the world, which is great. The strength of golf, the strength of European golfers right now is fantastic. Definitely something you probably wouldn't have seen 20 years ago, but I think European golfers have more of an opportunity to play over this side of the world and showcase what they can do. I think golf goes in cycles, as well. I don't think it's anything to really look much deeper into. But it's great for the European game, for sure. Q. (No microphone). RORY McILROY: It got tough. Bay Hill the greens got firm, a little windy. Sawgrass doesn't really suit anyone. Jim Furyk, who finished second to me, are polar opposites in the way we play the game. And then it looked very difficult on Sunday at the Valspar. So maybe just with the wind and the tricky conditions that might play into the Europeans' hands a little more. Q. We kind of lost the exciting Wednesday when there was 32 matches, single elimination, so many people going home, et cetera. I'd be curious with no one having lost any match and still won this thing in the format, when you went into it say in '15, when we first had the group play, did you find yourself having the same sense of urgency that you've seem to have now? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I definitely think so. Q. Is that true for most of the field? RORY McILROY: Yeah. Yeah. If you don't win your first couple matches, that sense of urgency -- I think even not winning your first match, you still have something to play for. Yes, you're relying on other guys. Your fate isn't in your own hands. But that's a great motivator in itself, okay, I'm going to keep my fate in my own hands this week if I just keep winning matches. Q. Fan behavior in the NBA has drawn in headlines recently. And I was wondering in golf where the accepted fan behavior is much different from other sports, how do you decide when you need to say something about an unruly fan, like as a player, what is the demarcation line for you when you feel like you need to say something to security? RORY McILROY: I think one of the wonderful things about PGA Tour events, golf events in general is a lot of kids come out to watch, right? And that's -- it's great for the game. They're the future. So I think profanity is one thing, if you've got guys that are shouting obscenities and swear words and stuff and there's kids around, I think that isn't cool. And then there's other stuff. They start to shout the players' private life, that crosses the line, as well, deliberately rooting against someone or trying to get in their head, I think that's another thing. Look, that might be acceptable in terms of a basketball player going to shoot a couple of free throws and people are making noise or whatever, that's acceptable in their game. But it's not fair when only a handful of guys are subjected to that in the field and the other guys can just go about their business. So I think that would be a point if it were to come to that where you might want to try to either get security to tell the guys to settle down or to remove them. Q. We all know you want to win the Masters. We know it, right? RORY McILROY: You want to win the Masters, as well. Q. I'd love to. I'd just like to break 100. How has your perspective on the personal desire and need to win the Masters and thereby the career Grand Slam evolved over the years? RORY McILROY: Yeah, so I think -- yeah, as you said, I think there's a difference between a personal desire and a need. And I think I've separated those two. I would have said a couple of years ago, "I need to win a Masters. I need a Green Jacket." Where now it's, "I want to. I want to win it. And I'd love to win it." But if I don't I'm okay. And I think that is the difference. Maybe some people will say that that's not -- I'm not motivated enough. Believe me, I am motivated to make the most of what I have and to put my name among some of the greats of our game. But at the same time knowing that in golf you fail -- my win percentage since I turned pro is probably around 10 percent, which is pretty good for golf. So knowing nine times out of tenure going to fail, you know, that -- that is freeing, as well. That's freedom. So I'm going to try my ass off here, and I'm not probably not going to win, but as long as you can take the positives from it and you move on to the next tournament and the next tournament and the next tournament and you keep going with what you want it to do and you keep learning and, look, I've had ten years of learning at Augusta, some tough times. And all of those if I do one day I'm able to get that Green Jacket at the end of 72 holes, all of those experiences will have played a part in helping me do that. So have I a desire to do it? Yes. Do I have a need to do it? No. NICK PARKER: Thanks for coming in, Rory. Best of luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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