THE 149TH OPEN

July 15, 2021

Rory McIlroy

Mixed Zone

Q. Rory, thanks for joining us. Birdie at the last there. You must be happy with that finish.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, really happy with that finish. Yeah, it was a tricky afternoon. The conditions got pretty rough there in the middle of the round. The wind got up and I made a few bogeys in a row, so sort of said to myself at the turn if I could get back to even par for the day I would be happy.

To birdie the last hole and get back to even par, yeah, it's nice to finish like that. Looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow.

Q. Well played. Nice birdie at the last. What was the biggest challenge out there today? The pace of the greens seemed to be something that troubled quite a few players. I know you left quite a few putts out there short today. Maybe that was something that troubled you.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, the greens have been slow. The whole transition of coming back to Europe and putting on these greens, I felt they were slow in Ireland, slow last week in Scotland, and they're slow this week again.

It was Patrick left a lot short, so did Cam, I so did. I put extra weight in my putter this week to try to help that, to try to counteract the slow greens. My pace was a bit better than in practice. I was leaving some woefully short the last couple days.

The extra weight in the putter helped a little bit. Yeah, it's just so hard. The wind was so strong and you get a putt that's back into the wind, you really have to give it a belt to get it to the hole.

Q. And just the final birdie, how much does that mean to you? Obviously big difference being level par mentally to 1-over.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, more mentally than anything else. Obviously one shot closer to the lead. Yeah, just to battle back -- I was 2-over through 7 after getting off to a good start. To battle back and shoot even par, play the last, whatever it is, 11 holes in 2-under, I was pretty pleased with that in those conditions.