	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

DP WORLD TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP, DUBAI

November 19, 2019

Rory McIlroy

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

STEVE TODD: Delighted to be joined by Rory McIlroy. Welcome back. It's been a terrific 2019 campaign for yourself. Talk about closing out the season, particularly off the back of that victory in China.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, one event left. I've had a nice couple weeks off after the Asian trip. yeah, I feel okay. Looking forward to a couple of months off to be honest, but one last event, one final push. Back in Dubai at a place and course I have a lot of good memories at.

Yeah, looking forward to the week. I've played well this year. Four wins have been great. Be great to put myself in position to try to win a fifth. I feel the way I've been playing over the last few months, if I just go out and do my thing, hopefully I give myself another chance, finish the season off on a high note.

STEVE TODD: You don't need to make many changes to a winning formula, but a couple of forced changes this week with Niall O'Connor coming on the bag. Tell us about that.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I guess it's good, if there's any week where I don't have Harry on the bag, it's good it's this week. I feel like I could play this place blindfolded. I've been coming back here for ten years, yeah, I know the place like the back of my hand, so you know, Niall is here. It's going to be a fun week for us to get out there and hopefully I can play well the first few days and you know, we'll get into the heat of battle hopefully on the weekend and that will be something that will be fun for both of us.

But yeah, it's good. Obviously I'll maybe take on a little bit more responsibility than I usually do and jot stuff down. It feels a little bit like when Harry first came on the bag a couple years ago, right. I took on a little more responsibility writing stuff in my yardage book and pacing stuff out. I actually quite enjoy that part, as well.

You know what, it will be fun. Obviously Niall and I go back a long way, so yeah, for me at this point it's just about trying to stay as relaxed and as loose as possible out there and he can definitely do that for me.

Q. Is there any sense of frustration that --
RORY McILROY: No. (Laughter).

Q. That you won't have a chance to win The Race to Dubai this week?
RORY McILROY: No. I've won it three times. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to do it, but I just haven't played enough European Tour events. I haven't played enough counting European Tour events to have a chance, so no. Look, I haven't played enough, and you know, you look at someone like a Bernd Wiesberger that's played 25, 26, 27 times, whatever it is. You know, those are the guys that deserve to be up there with a chance to win.

Q. You've often spoken about how big 2020 could be, apart from the four majors packed all together, there is also going to be the Olympics. Is there nothing to be any changes how you approach the year?
RORY McILROY: It's been -- I think this year has been a great learning year for me in terms of knowing what works. I feel like I changed my schedule up a good bit this year, and it helped, not traveling quite as much at the start of the year. Basing myself in Florida where I now live, majority of the time and not having to travel too far from there. That definitely helps for the first few months of the year feeling settled, not crossing too many time zones.

You know, so I don't envision -- why would I change next year? I've had a wonderful season this season and I feel like I've figured out a few things that really helped me. It's been a good formula this year, and I don't see any reason to change anything going into next year.

Q. What do the Olympics mean to you?
RORY McILROY: It will be a good experience. You know, it's something that I've never done before, and you know, this is -- at this stage of my career, I feel like I've experienced most things in the game. So to experience something new, you know, 12 or 13 years into a career is going to be pretty cool again.

Q. Having your friend who was an athlete himself, I guess he had a lot of talent and he achieved a lot. Do you expect to get something from him? If yes, can you tell what it is?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think if anything, obviously Niall has been, you know, I guess got a few egg hats for Ireland, played for Ulster a got of times. Yeah, he knows what it feels like in the heat of the battle. Obviously we don't have 18-stone men on the ballast like he has in the past, it's a little bit different.

I think the other thing, he's a pretty good golfer himself. He's played a lot of amateur tournaments in Ireland, so he knows the game well, and he knows what it's like, how that feels to be in the heat of battle and be under pressure and all that.

So you know, as I said, it will be fun to be out there with him this week, and it's a change of pace for both of us. He's obviously stuck in an office in New York most days, and yeah, so it will be fun.

But as I said at the start, it will be a great experience for both of us, and you know, as long as I stay loose and relaxed out there, that's the most important thing.

Q. The Player of the Year, would you have voted for yourself or would you vote for Brooks Koepka?
RORY McILROY: I don't know. I would have said before THE TOUR Championship, I would have voted for Brooks. But obviously after that, I mean, at the end of the day, it wasn't up to me. It was up to the PGA TOUR players. They thought that my consistency was deserving of that accolade and that's very nice.

But yeah, I mean, it depends what is important to you and for me, if I look at my season as a whole, maybe not -- obviously PGA TOUR season ended at the end of August, but then going on from there, I've played quite a bit since then and played well and got another win at the World Golf Championships. I've accumulated 100 more World Ranking points than anyone else this year. If you look purely by the numbers, I feel like I was deserving.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297