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BMW PGA CHAMPIONSHIPMay 25, 2012Rory McIlroyVIRGINIA WATER, ENGLAND Q. One of the tougher weeks at the office I'm sure. What was such a struggle about your game and indeed about the conditions? RORY McILROY: I'm not sure. I got off to another decent start again today, 1‑under through seven. That stretch around the middle of the golf course, I just can't seem to be able to get anything going around there. It really halts your momentum, and especially on a day like today when it's very difficult, it's very hard to get that back. Q. Can you put your finger on why, what specifically was problematic for you? RORY McILROY: A few things. I mean, I didn't hit many fairways in the back nine, and from there, it's very hard to get the ball close to the hole. Yeah, everything wasn't really on song this week. I'm going to have to put some hard practise in at the weekend and get ready for next week in the States. Q. You've obviously got to regroup now, and it's the first time in over two years you've missed two cuts in a row. You're not pressing panic buttons, I'm sure, but what specifically do you think you're going to have to work on? RORY McILROY: To be honest, I'm not‑‑ just everything. I'll just have to go and really work hard and try and get it back to the level that it was at earlier in the year. I think I might have taken my aye off the ball a little bit, so I just need to go back and work hard and try to get it back to the level that it was leading into the Masters. Q. Taking your aye off the ball, how? RORY McILROY: I don't know, maybe just not practising as hard as I might have been. I feel like I've put the work in, but maybe just more specific. I'll just have to think long and hard about it tonight and have a good chat with my team and make sure that I'm ready for the next few events. Q. And Olympic Club are coming up, clearly the defence of your U.S. Open title; what does this do for you in terms of preparation, obviously it's not great. RORY McILROY: No, it's not. I'm looking forward to getting back over in the States and playing there and getting ready for that, and being prepared. So I've got a big event coming up next week at Memorial, and I've got five days from now until then to put some hard practise in and get my game ready for that. Q. What do you think went wrong the last couple of days? RORY McILROY: Pretty much everything. You know, I got off to a decent start again today. I was 1‑under through seven. I was 2‑under through seven yesterday, and it's just something about the middle of this golf course that I just can't to grips with. I play those holes terribly, and you know, it halts any momentum that I have. It's very hard to get it back. So I'm just going to have to work hard the next few days and get ready for Memorial next week. Q. How do you keep your concentration on the second nine on a Friday when you know that you're going to miss the cut? RORY McILROY: You don't. Well, I don't, anyway. I'm already thinking about next week and what I need to do to get my game ready for that, because you know, when I made‑‑ basically when I bogeyed 10,11, I knew that I would have to do something very special to make the cut. Thinking about it, it's probably a good thing that I have the next two days off to practice and get my game a little sharper going into next week. Q. Is this something that you think you can fix right away? RORY McILROY: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's much. I think it's just putting time in on the range. Just hitting a lot of balls and just sort of getting back into it. I don't think it's something that will be hard to fix. I just need to hit a lot of balls and just get comfortable with my game again. Q. Let me ask you two things about the U.S. Open. You'll play the Memorial but talking about preparation for a U.S. Open, when you're a European player, is that the most difficult major to prepare for for someone on this side of the Atlantic? RORY McILROY: Yeah, you could say that. It all depends where you play and the few weeks before if you're already in the States. Especially a West Coast U.S. Open, I think it's pretty difficult for earn to sort of prepare for because the guys that will play Memorial, if they take the week off, they might practise where it's warm, or the guys that play Memphis the week before, it's going to be brutally hot there and you're going to go to San Francisco where it's a little cooler. So you know everyone can prepare differently, and you know, everyone just has got to find out what works best for them. Q. You've been in this groove where you've been not playing the week before a Major Championship. What do you do to try to simulate what you might see the following week when you're off the week prior to a major? RORY McILROY: You go to the course early and you just stay there and just try to get to know the courses as much as possible. The only one that really changes from the week before to the week of is the Masters, they really‑‑ the golf course setup changes quite a lot, and I think the U.S. Open is set up pretty similarly the week before, as it will be during the tournament. The greens might not be just as quick but everything else is pretty similar. Q. This isn't a major, but does professional pride mean it hurts just as much? RORY McILROY: Of course. I was really wanting to make four at the last to break 80. But yeah, of course, it's not nice to play like this, and it's not nice to play like this two weeks in a row. I'm just going to have to work hard and get my game back to where it was at the start of the year. Q. These two courses, Sawgrass is different, maybe even Wentworth is different because of the size of the tournament; but you don't have a choice? RORY McILROY: I don't not have choice. I do have the choice, but I come‑‑ I decided to come here because I want to support The European Tour. But, no, still I'll play. It's a huge event on the golf calendar. No matter if you like the golf course or not, I said it at my press conference at THE PLAYERS Championship a couple of weeks ago, besides the prestige and size of it, you still want to these big events. Q. When did you think over the last two days that you might have been a little light in the amount of practise you've been doing; was there a particular moment? RORY McILROY: Not really. I got here Monday and hit the ball very well. I just feel like I've lacked competitive rounds maybe a little bit. I take a couple of weeks off after the Masters, played Quail Hollow great, and then we had two days at PLAYERS championship and another week off from competitive golf and another two days here. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting over to the states and playing four rounds next week. Q. Does that make you reconsider your schedule? It worked very well going into the U.S. Open last year, but not playing four rounds‑‑ RORY McILROY: I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's got to that stage just yet. I'm still confident in my abilities and it's just a matter of working hard and trying to bring it up a level from where it has been the last couple of weeks. Q. You've also admitted in the past that you probably have to change some things to play in difficult, windy conditions. Is that reinforced today, as well? RORY McILROY: Not really. I won The Honda Classic this year in very windy conditions, so it's not like I can't play in it. It's a very tricky golf course and if you're just off your game a little bit, it magnifies those weaknesses or the mistakes that you make. So you can see that the scoring wasn't too good out there today, and I mean, I'm not making an excuse and saying that's why I played so badly, because it wasn't. But it's just a week that I would like to forget and move on and concentrate on the few weeks that are coming up. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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