Q. You've added a 71 to yesterday's 70. How does that make you feel?
RORY McILROY: A little frustrated. But I thought the conditions were a little tricky. This afternoon the wind was up a little bit more. The greens started to get a little bit firmer.
Yeah, you know, it was hard to hit it close and make a ton of birdies. I know a couple of people did, but overall I felt like the scoring this afternoon, not quite as good as the scoring this morning.
You know, get out there early tomorrow and try to post a score and get myself up the leaderboard and give myself a chance for Sunday.
Q. You had 39 feet of putts, that's two feet per hole. So they weren't going in, were they. Were they mis-strokes or misreads?
RORY McILROY: Misreads. They are really tricky. There's a lot of grain, a lot of grain doing different ways, double breakers. Felt like I was hitting pretty good putts. Burned a lot of edges. So just have to keep trying to make committed strokes and make good reads, and hopefully sooner or later, they are going to drop.
Q. You came from 10 1/2 behind last time, and you're eight behind this time. So good news there. Does your game feel like it's in a place where if the putts start to drop, you could make a charge?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think so, especially the way the golf course is going. Obviously 11-under is leading. You know, Ewen Ferguson might get there if he birdies the last.
I'd say the winning score isn't going to be much above what the leader is right now, especially the way the course is going to play over the weekend, and the especially this golf course has played over the weekend the last couple years.
The greens will continue to get a little bit firmer, and will put such a premium on putting it in the fairway and hitting a lot of greens. If I can focus on that over the weekend, get a couple of putts to drop, I think I've still got a decent chance.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports