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OMEGA DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC

February 4, 2010

Rory McIlroy

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Rory, thanks for coming in. I think you've made a good start to your defence. Give us your assessment of that and go from there.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it was very tricky out there. It was windy and sandy and dusty, and I did get off to a rough start, but made a very lucky birdie on the third and that got me back to level par after three. I knew the front nine was playing a lot tougher than the back nine; so I knew if I kept it around level par the front nine I was doing okay, and then take advantage of the par 5s on the back nine, and I was able to do that. I birdied a couple of them and another couple of chances, as well. Overall it was a great day's work, and I'm in good spirits going into tomorrow morning.

Q. Could you talk us through holes 2 and 3?
RORY McILROY: There was a bit of a -- not like I'm making any excuses. No, there was a bit of a hold-up on the second, and it was sort of, obviously, it's quite a short par 4. I took driver trying to get it up close to the green, and was trying to hit it really hard, and you know, I just got underneath it and flipped it, and hit it way left on to the cart path of the other golf course.
Was actually really fortunate to be where I was. Took a drop and had a clear line through, but didn't hit best of second shots and made a five on a relatively easy hole that you think you can pick up a shot.
And then the par 5 third, I hit my drive into the left rough. It was a tough tee shot today, and hacked a 5-wood up into the right rough and hit a wedge on to about 35 feet. And if the ball didn't hit the hole, it was another wedge. (Laughter) It was going off the green.
I was lucky that it hit -- even if it hit the side of the hole, it was still going way past. It hit the hole, punched up about a foot in the air and went in. I was pretty fortunate. From there on, I just played really solid golf.

Q. How much of a factor was the wind today, and have you ever seen the golf course in such a condition before, in five years?
RORY McILROY: I remember the second day in 2008, when the shamal came in, it was very similar to that. Wind in the desert isn't -- you get it windy in Ireland or Scotland, if it was the same strength of wind there, I mean, you're talking maybe a two- or three-club wind. Because the wind is quite warm here, the ball seems to go through it a lot better.
You know, instead of it being a two- or three-club wind, it was only half a club or a club wind. So in that respect, it made it a little easier. But the dust and everything in the air made it a bit tricky, as well.

Q. It's also because here, you're not going out and in, are you; you're going round and round, so you've really got to judge it on each hole?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, you do. JP did a great job of that today. We were sort of consulting on -- you know, there's a few trees around there, so it could channel in places and you can get a feel into it off the right. But it's actually down off the left.
So JP did a great job today in figuring out where the wind was, and he was right most of the time.

Q. I was going to ask you, I know it's important, but how important is it to sort of start off your defence with a pretty solid score?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, very important. At the start of the day, I would have taken anything under 70, looking at the scores and the conditions.
So you know, to shoot 68 was very pleasing, and I know that defending and everything, it's nice to get off to a nice start like that, but there's still a lot of golf to play.

Q. Do you feel any added pressure on your shoulders to put in a good score?
RORY McILROY: Not really. JP and myself were talking yesterday, we were looking down the past winners. Most of the past winners have got off to really good starts in this tournament. So we knew we had to try and get out of the blocks very quickly and were able to do that today.

Q. You shot a 64 in the first round here last year; I know golf is never easy, but if that was comfortable golf, how hard was this in comparison?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, that 64 is probably the easiest 64 I'll ever shoot. I played very well.
Today was much more of a grind. I had to stay so patient out there. You know, you were hitting good shots and you were hitting it to 25, 30 feet all the time, and it's hard to take chances from there.
So when I did get a few chances, I took them, and made a couple of really good 2-putts through fringes and stuff and sort of didn't make any stupid mistakes, which was nice. I only made one bogey out there, which in those conditions, I think is pretty solid golf.

Q. Happy with the up-and-down at 9?
RORY McILROY: Yes, I was quite fortunate there. I had a pretty good lie. So it wasn't as difficult as it looked.

Q. Does winning here before alter your mind-set in any way? Does it give you great confidence and belief that you know what it takes?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, definitely. I've said this before, but I do feel very comfortable on this golf course. I feel as if the tee shots suit me. I feel as if I've got most of the shots that I need to do well out here.
But yeah, obviously winning last year gave me a big confidence boost. It's nice coming back to a venue that you've won on before. I've had a bit in my amateur days and this is the first taste of it as a professional, and it feels very nice.

Q. Can you go through the back nine?
RORY McILROY: I hit probably my best drive of the day on 10. I hit a 3-wood from 240 into the wind to about 25 feet just right of the pin, 2-putted that, 12th I hit a driver and a wedge to six feet just below the hole.
17, I didn't hit a very good tee shot. Hit it into the left trap with a 3-wood. Didn't hit a very good second shot, about 25 feet left of the pin on the fringe. Rolled that one in, which was a bonus.
And then the last hole, I hit a pretty good tee shot, but the wind, it's just straight down and you know, you can't get enough movement on the ball from right-to-left to get it around the corner. So I went through the fairway, laid up with a 9-iron to 110 yards and I hit a sand wedge to eight feet below the hole.

Q. Were you happy with that, being below the hole; was that where you aimed to be there, was it?
RORY McILROY: Anywhere within ten feet I suppose with a sand wedge. Doesn't matter if it's pin-high, left, right; just give yourself a putt for the about birdie.

Q. That's a very tough tee shot on 18.
RORY McILROY: They moved the tee markers to the left side of the tee box so it gave you no option. You couldn't tee it up on the very far right side of the tee box and try and make an angle for yourself.
So I mean, Pablo took 5-wood off the tee. He played it -- he played 5-wood, 3-wood, we were trying to play it 3-wood, 5-wood.
So it's sort of -- but just around through the fairway, and it was probably a good thing, though, a miss, because the pin was in a very generous position, and you could hit it, even if you laid yourself well back, you could go in there with an 8-iron or 7-iron, you felt you were having a good look at birdie.

Q. On 18, have you ever thought of going to the 17th fairway with maybe an 8-iron and hitting a 3-wood on to the green?
RORY McILROY: You couldn't do it today because the tee box was on the left side of the teeing area. So I wouldn't have been able to get it up on high enough. But I heard Jeev did it yesterday, did he?
You know, just played it in the conventional way. It's worked pretty well in the past.
MICHAEL GIBBONS: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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