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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE INSURANCEJune 2, 2011Rory McIlroyDUBLIN, OHIO JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Rory McIlroy, well played today, first round 66 here at the Memorial. If we could get a couple opening comments, a good start for you. RORY McILROY: Yeah. You know, really happy with the way I played today. Got off to a little bit of a scrappy start on my front nine, which was the back nine. Got it up-and-down a few times just to keep myself around 1- or 2-under par and then found a few birdies on the way in, which helped me -- which was the bulk of my birdies. Yeah, happy with 66, a great way to start the tournament. Q. Misses on 4 and 9, were those just misreads, poor putts? RORY McILROY: The miss on 4 was a poor putt. The miss on 9 I hit the putt that I wanted to. Gary's putt was going the opposite direction down the hill and his broke right, so I was thinking I hit mine just dead straight and it actually broke the other way. I hit the putt I wanted to. If anything it just lacked a little bit of pace. But apart from that -- and on the second hole, as well, I had a good chance, and same thing, I hit a really good putt where I wanted to, it just shaved the edge. It could have been a couple better, but I'll take 66. Q. I think you were T10 here last year? RORY McILROY: Yeah. Q. So you walk out of here feeling like it's set up pretty well for you, you like the course, all those kinds of things, in terms of coming back? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I said to the guys out there, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year, one of my favorite golf courses. I feel as if it really does set up well for me. I like these sort of golf courses, the likes of here and Akron and Quail Hollow with -- tree-lined, and I sort of feel as if I'm pretty comfortable on courses like that. Yeah, I feel comfortable, and I'm swinging well, I'm hitting it good, and I'm holing a few putts, so hopefully I can keep it going for the next three days. Q. If you can expand on that a little. Why are you comfortable? Did you grow up on tree-lined courses? RORY McILROY: Not really. I do prefer this sort of golf where you've got to fly it in the air. When there's no wind and the conditions are as good as they are and the greens are this good, you're going to give yourself plenty of opportunities. Q. I'm sorry to bring up kind of a sore subject, but the Masters thing, you were the third guy of the last four majors, a youngster who had trouble on Sunday. You've probably been asked about this already. Is there a common thread there that you see other than age and inexperience and first time at the steering wheel heading into a Sunday with all that pressure? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I mean, I don't know how Dustin and Nick were feeling whenever they were going into the last round leading, but it's a totally -- it's a new experience, and I don't know if it's just because we all want it so badly that we sort of change from Saturday night to Sunday in a way. But I think we've all -- Dustin got himself into a great position at Whistling after what happened at the U.S. Open, and he was very unfortunate not to win that. If it had been -- if that bunker wasn't a bunker, he would have been in a playoff and had a great chance to win. Yeah, I mean, they're huge. They're major championships, and you want to really try and get your first one out of the way and kick on. I think the common thing probably between all three of us, we probably put ourselves under a lot of pressure on that Sunday to just get it done, and that probably worked against us. Q. Along those lines, you've probably not been to Congressional? RORY McILROY: No, not yet. Q. What's your plan leading up to the Open? RORY McILROY: I am going to play this week and then I'm going to Haiti for a couple of days, Monday, Tuesday, and then Congressional -- going to Congressional Wednesday, Thursday. I'm going up to Bayonne on Friday for a corporate day and then I'm at Pine Valley for the weekend. I'll see Congressional for a couple of days, which is going to be good. I'm looking forward to it. Q. What's going on in Haiti? RORY McILROY: I'm doing a field trip for UNICEF, so I'm going down there, and it should be pretty eye-opening. I'm sort of -- it'll be good. It's something I've wanted to do since I signed up with UNICEF at the start of this year. I'm looking forward to it. Q. What are they going to have you do down there? RORY McILROY: I'm not too sure. I'll probably just go and see it. I'm not too sure. Q. Why did you want to do that? What do you expect to get out of that? RORY McILROY: You know, it's great -- you want to associate yourself with a charity that you actually -- you feel close to, and UNICEF works with mainly a children's charity, and I feel like I'm the sort of age that I can relate to the younger people. I just don't want to really put my name to it, I wanted to do something, and they were very keen for me to go and see somewhere where they're sort of hands-on and they're working with, and it sort of just fit in quite well that I could go to Haiti for a couple of days and see what they do. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could run through your scorecard, birdies and bogeys, please. RORY McILROY: Yeah. Birdie on the 11th hole, hit a good drive and a 3-wood just through the back of the green, chipped it just from the back edge to about six feet and holed it. 13, I hit a good -- I hit a 3-wood just into the right semi, had to cut around trees and just hit it into the left green-side trap, splashed, so I didn't quite get it on the green, chipped it on a couple of feet and holed it. 14, I hit a 3-iron on the fairway, had like 80 yards with a lob wedge, hit it to 12 feet, holed it. 15, I hit a good drive up the fairway, missed the green left with my second shot with a 5-iron, which was -- which was where you didn't want to leave it and left it there and somehow chipped it in. It was going pretty speedy. And then birdied 3, hit another 3-iron off the tee there, hit a sand wedge in from 110 and left myself about 15 feet up the hill, holed that. Hit a driver and a wedge into 6 to maybe 10 feet straight up the hill. Hit a driver and a 5-iron on the 7th, pin high, maybe 25, 30 feet up the hill, two-putted that. And then hit a 9-iron on the 8th hole from 163, left it just below the hole 15 feet and wasn't able to hole that. Q. Without belaboring the point about the TOUR membership and all that, could you just explain why you didn't choose to meet the minimum over here this year, and if you would win here, can that or would that change anything as far as your plans for the rest of the year? RORY McILROY: You know, I didn't take my card up at the start of this year, so I was never going to play the minimum amount of events. I played 31 events last year, so that's part of the reason. I wanted to cut down on my schedule. It would be, in theory, possible to play both Tours. I did last year. But it took a lot out of me. It was a tough decision because I really wanted to come over here and give it a go, but I find -- you've got to either concentrate on one Tour or the other. If you want to try and either win the FedExCup or the Race to Dubai. I'm just not ready yet to move over to the States and play my golf full-time here, so I stayed in Europe. If I won, I'm not sure. I'm really not sure what way that would work. But no, even if I did win, I still -- I probably wouldn't take my card up. Another thing, at the end of -- as a European and playing in some European events over the summer, like the French Open and the Irish Open, we have a very busy summer of golf, and I felt like after the PGA last year at Whistling Straits I sort of wanted to take a couple weeks off just to refresh. You couldn't really do it, you had a week off and then straight into the Playoffs. So it was a lot of golf over a short period of time, and I just wanted to do things a little differently this year. Q. Is this your first UNICEF event or have you done other things for them so far? RORY McILROY: This is my first field trip, yeah. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Rory, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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