WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 24, 2023

Rory McIlroy

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Rory, you're driving right on point again today. It was too good on 12. It just looked fantastic.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, almost, almost. It was a bit of an awkward lie for the second shot there. More of the same again.

I think as every day goes by, I was saying to harry out there, the more and more confidence I'm getting with it, which is great. It's nice to stand up on a tee box and have that freedom knowing that the club's going to do what it's supposed to do and the feel of the swing is matching the shape of the ball flight.

Yeah, another great day where I struck the ball well and sort of got up early, kept pressure on Keegan. It was nice to get through to the weekend.

Q. Such a great reaction to your drive on Thursday night. Fax said it was one of the greatest tee shots in the history of this game. How do you reflect on that?

RORY McILROY: I think that's a little bit of hyperbole there. Look, honestly for me the two shots into 16 yesterday were better than the drive on 18.

The drive on 18 was great and the length and the accuracy and whatever, it was a good shot, but there was a few more shots out there yesterday that pleased me more than that tee shot.

That tee shot's got all the headlines and the attention, but there's other parts of the game that I'm a lot more pleased with and happy with that's a little more translatable as the year goes on.

Q. Lucas tomorrow. He's bounced back incredibly from THE PLAYERS where he had a terrible time.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, both of us did. Look, TPC is one of those golf courses, if you're just a little off, it feels like it magnifies the misses that you have there. Obviously we both missed the cut. Lucas shot a couple of high numbers.

As you see this week, reading into that too much, especially around that golf course, it just isn't -- I don't think it's -- the performances around TPC, except for, of course, Scottie, who's playing the best golf in the world right now -- you can take that golf course with a pinch of salt because it's such a different golf course than so many others that we play.

Q. How would you grade where your game is this week, for three days?

RORY McILROY: It's getting there. It's very solid. I didn't make a bogey the last couple of days. I think I only made one in the last three.

It's good. It's probably as good as it's felt all year, which is nice going into obviously the next couple of weeks.

Q. Your short game looks just as sharp as ever.

RORY McILROY: Yeah, short game, everything is sort of on point. I missed a couple of short ones out there later on in the day, but I was really pleased with how I putted the start of the match. I held some nice putts.

That's the only thing, I would say, is just sort of tidying up there and trying to feel a little more solid with the putting. The rest of the game feels in really good shape.