THE MODERATOR: Rory McIlroy is with us at the 108th PGA Championship. How would you describe your opening round?
RORY McILROY: Shit.
Q. Could you elaborate what parts about it? Everything? Some things?
RORY McILROY: I started missing fairways. I missed the fairway right on 4, the fairway right on 6, the fairway right on 7, fairway right on 9. From there, it's hard -- you know, I didn't have great angles either. Then obviously you start missing it just off the edges of these greens, it gets tricky.
Yeah, I felt like I did okay. I made that birdie on 5 to get back to even-par after the soft bogey on 4, then I just got on that bogey train at the end.
Q. That is disappointing. Golf is always going to be a game of adjustments throughout a round. Does that make it even more frustrating when you can't quite?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'm just not driving the ball well enough. It's been a problem all year for the most part. Yeah, I've sort of got, like I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it. And then I'll overdo it, and I'll miss it left. It's a little bit of back and forth that way. So that's pretty frustrating, especially when like I pride myself on driving the ball well.
I just need to try to figure it out. I honestly thought I'd figured it out. Coming in here, I hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow, and then hit it good at home on Monday. Then even -- obviously I had to curtail the practice round Tuesday, but hit it decent yesterday.
Just sort of, once I get under the gun, it just seems like it starts to go a little bit wayward on me.
Q. How would you compare your frustration right now to how you felt last year after the first round?
RORY McILROY: I can't really remember. I was frustrated because my driver failed the test. I sort of had to get into a backup pretty quickly, and that sort of threw me for a loop a little bit.
I'd say similar sense of frustration. I'm just, yeah, not driving the ball well enough to give myself enough scoring opportunities.
Q. Did the toe bother you at all?
RORY McILROY: No.
Q. Rory, is there more of a penalty for missing the fairways than maybe we'd been led to believe in sort of the run-up to the championship? Or guys were just talking, including yourself, about just wail it down there and find it.
RORY McILROY: It's hit and miss. I think, if you miss it on the right side going into like -- you know, if the pin's on the left, you miss it right, it's fine.
But yeah, I got a couple of lies today that were particularly bad. The one on the 10th hole starting off, that's as bad as I've seen.
Yeah, there is a penalty for -- certainly is a penalty for missing the fairway. Probably more than what I anticipated after being here, whatever it is, two Fridays ago.
Q. Rory, how is just the course in general playing? I think we had one guy get to 4-under briefly today, and nobody's gotten beyond 3. There's a few scores under par. Is that kind of the way you would have thought?
RORY McILROY: I think it was the wind. I wasn't expecting it to be as windy today as it was. I think it's the breezy conditions that are sort of making the scoring what it is. It's hard to get the ball close. Some of the pins are tucked away. You've got -- say you have a pin tucked over on the left side of the green and the wind's coming off the left, it's hard to get it over there.
Probably just seeing a lot of guys hit it to 20 and 30 feet. They're good shots, it's just hard to make a lot of those putts.
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