BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

August 18, 2023

Rory McIlroy

Olympia Fields Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you assess that round today?

RORY McILROY: Pretty mediocre. One birdie, one bogey. Gave myself tons of chances. I felt like I hit good putts, just hit a lot of edges, and the ball just sort of slid by.

Yeah, overall hit it a little better off the tee. I had a couple of big wides, on 7 and on 15.

But I don't feel like I played too different to how I played yesterday. I just got a bit more out of my round yesterday.

Q. Do you feel like you need to drive the ball better this weekend to stay in contention?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, as the course firms up a little bit, yes. It's still super receptive. There's still some greens that you'd almost rather -- especially to some of these back pins, you'd rather be hitting out of the rough than out of the fairway because you know it's not going to spin back on you.

Hopefully it firms up over the weekend, and if it does, we're all going to have to hit a few more fairways.

Q. Why are you finding yourself struggling with the spin control on the wedges today?

RORY McILROY: I mean, because I think -- like for example, that shot into 10, that was 105, so I have like a 105 shot with my sand wedge, which is like the lowest shot that I have. So if I went to another wedge, say my 50-degree wedge, I don't practice hitting my 50 105, so I don't really know what swing to put on it.

That's as easy as I can really hit a sand wedge, and trying to take spin off, and it still spins.

Again, we haven't played -- well, I certainly haven't played a golf course where the greens have been this soft in quite a while. Just trying to adjust to trying to always remember, okay, I need to throw this five or six past the hole to have it come back.