U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2021

June 18, 2021

Rory McIlroy

Torrey Pines Golf Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Rory, you had a challenging day out there, but you finished with birdies on 6 and 9. Tell us about the round, and does that provide momentum for you going into tomorrow?

RORY MCILROY: So a bit of a roller coaster, got off to a good start. Made a couple of birdies early on and was under par for the round. Then got on a little bit of a -- just sort of there's a few holes around the turn where I just didn't -- I made a couple of mental errors and missed it in the wrong spots, and when you do that around this golf course, it's just really hard to see a par.

I made a few bogeys, but as you said, birdieing two of the last four holes definitely makes me feel better about the round and gives me a nice bit of momentum going into tomorrow. 1-over par, even though Richard Bland's up there at 5-under, 1-over is right in it. So, yeah, in for the weekend and still feel like I've got a really good chance.

Q. What do you focus on this afternoon heading into tomorrow? Is there a particular area of your game?

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, a little bit. I think my alignment was getting a little off. So I'll go work on that on the range this afternoon. I felt like I drove the ball pretty well. I think I drove the ball better today than I did yesterday. Just need to straighten out the irons a little bit. If I can do that, as I said, I should have a good chance.