THE MODERATOR: Rory McIlroy is with us now at the 108th PGA Championship. We'll jump right into questions.
Q. If Thursday was shit, what was today?
RORY MCILROY: Better. I said no profanity today, so keep it clean.
Q. The Masters, you went to the range, was it after round 1, to work some stuff out? You went to the range after round 1 here today. What did you find differently? It seems like the driver is working better.
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, it was after round 3 at the Masters.
Yeah, I -- you know, I think I pride myself on managing my game well and learning as I go and trying to, I guess, problem solve as the week goes on. Yeah, there were some things in my game, especially in the driver, I didn't like on Thursday. So I went and I worked on it, tried to get a feeling that I was comfortable with.
I've certainly driven the ball better the last couple of days. Still not perfect, but much better and giving myself opportunities from the fairways and being able to make more birdies because of it.
Q. Rory, you have scoring chances today, and 29 guys in front of you when you started. What did you have in mind? What were you trying to accomplish, and did you do enough?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, honestly, I felt like if I went out and -- I had a chance to do this. If I had to play the last three holes at 1-under instead of 1-over, I would have got to 5. And I sort of thought if I could go out today and get to that, it would make the leaders shoot under par to either be with me or ahead of me. So I didn't get there. I made, I guess, a couple of mistakes the last three holes.
I feel like I still did enough to think I have a chance going into tomorrow.
Q. Rory, this isn't the Ryder Cup, and it's not New York, but walking with you, heard a lot of great comments, a lot of cheering for you. Wondering how weird that might have felt or if that surprised you?
RORY MCILROY: No. Again, 103 out of 104 weeks, I get pretty good support everywhere I go. It's just that one week every -- or one week every four years, I guess it is, that most of the crowd are on the other side, and that's fine.
If I were them, I'd be on the U.S. side, too.
But no, I do, I feel like I get a lot of support anywhere I go, and I'm very fortunate and very grateful for that.
Q. Take yourself back to Thursday evening and how you were feeling Thursday evening. Compare that emotion to how you're feeling now after 48 hours, roller coaster of emotions, and the journey of point A to point B.
RORY MCILROY: I wouldn't say roller coaster of emotions. I didn't play particularly well on -- I had a really bad finish on Thursday, but at the end of the day, I was only seven back.
Like I thought back to last year's Masters, I was seven back after the first day, and I was two ahead going into the final day. So there's a lot of golf and a lot of things can happen during the course of a golf tournament.
I've progressively just got a little bit closer to the lead each day.
We'll see what happens. We'll see what the guys do this afternoon. But I've climbed my way out of that hole a little bit, which is -- I'm proud of myself for doing that, but there's one more day left, and I feel like I'm -- again, if I can -- depending on what the guys do, be close enough to the lead, I feel like I've still got a good chance.
Q. Seeing a pretty different style of scoring today, a lot more birdies, quite a few fireworks. I'm curious how it played differently from your perspective and, I guess, why? Pins, weather, what combination of things?
RORY MCILROY: Wind direction is a little bit different. So I think it makes some of the holes play slightly easier than they've played the first couple of days.
Yeah, some hole locations are a little more generous, but there are still some hole locations that have been tucked away. 13 is up, is drivable, and the two par-5s are downwind, so they're very much reachable. Yeah, there's a number of factors.
And I think as well, we're two days into the tournament, or three days now, and guys are just more -- you learn the course as you go along, and guys are just getting more comfortable with certain clubs off tees or having a better idea of the greens and where to miss and where not to miss.
I just think we all, as every day goes on, we just keep learning a little bit more about the golf course and getting a little more comfortable, and that's what you're seeing today.
Q. Can you take us through the tee shot on 6?
RORY MCILROY: Again, like 6 was down and off the left. If anything, it was in off the left the first two days. I wasn't trying to hit it on the green. I was just trying to get it up there somewhere around the green. I knew, if I hit it good, I could get it close to front edge. It was a perfect line.
I think as well the fairways are drying out. They're all cut down grain, so they are getting very fast. So if you can get the ball rolling on the fairways, it can go an awfully long way.
Q. You just mentioned that you've had to climb yourself out of that hole before. I'm just curious how specific you have to get with a game plan heading into the next round, especially at a major.
RORY MCILROY: I think it's just setting yourself little targets. Yesterday I set myself a target of getting back to even-par for the tournament, didn't quite get there, was one shy.
Again today, set myself a target of if I could get to 5-under par, one better than the leaders going out, that was -- again, didn't quite get there, but I think just setting yourself these little targets, it helps you just lock in and focus on yourself and not really think about anything else that's going on. And I've done a good job of that over the past couple days.
Q. Earlier in the week you talked about working on your driver leading into the tournament. I guess could you elaborate a little bit about what it is that you thought you found and maybe like how it gets away from you out there and how it panned out today?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but the first few days, the wind on the range, again, has been left to right, and it's just been like a tough -- last week at Quail Hollow was the same, and I just -- my path starts to get more and more left with a left-to-right wind, and that's not my pattern.
If anything, my path would be out to the right with the driver. So it was just trying to -- it was getting the TrackMan out, looking up the path and face numbers and just trying to get them a little bit more to the right and getting a feeling in transition where I let the -- feel like I let my right shoulder relax in transition instead of trying to get the club back out in front of me.
That's sort of the feeling that I went with with the driver, and that's helped.
Q. For the rest of the day today, I know you have to kind of stay in your own little world, but will you watch the coverage this afternoon and just see how the afternoon unfolds?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I'll watch a little bit of it. I'll watch a little bit. I'll go back to the house and put the feed up. I started "Batman: The Dark Knight" last night, so I'll try and finish that. That's one of my go-tos to try to forget about things.
Yeah, I'll be curious just to see how the leaders go this afternoon.
Q. How much more was it blowing at the end than this morning?
RORY MCILROY: It was whipping at the end, I think the last few holes for us, especially 17 and 18. I think we had like 209 to the pin on 17, and Brooks and I both hit 8-irons. I mean, we both probably hit our 8-irons 180, so it was like our plan for 25, 30 yards of help there.
Then, yeah, going up the last, I think those bunkers up the right are like 340 to carry. I was able to carry it with a driver. Yeah, the wind was whipping at the end. We'll see if it continues to blow as hard as that, and as the afternoon goes on, I'd certainly like it to blow as hard as that as the afternoon goes on, but we'll see.
Q. Can you think of another PGA course that they could manipulate scoring the way they can this week? And what do you expect for tomorrow?
RORY MCILROY: I don't know if manipulate scoring is the right term. Yeah, they've protected -- they've protected it. I don't know if -- manipulate seems a little --
Q. USGA? Okay.
RORY MCILROY: Well, Mike Davis, but he's gone. Yeah, it's -- look, when you have a set of greens like this, you can start to frustrate people pretty easily, I think. You heard it in me last night. You heard it in Scottie. I saw some of his comments. Shane. I think there was a lot of guys that were frustrated yesterday coming off the course.
Again, it's frustrating to us, but at the same time, it creates a helluva entering championship. If I wasn't playing this tournament, I'd love what's going on this week, but watching and playing are two different things.
Q. Did you get a sense of pins tomorrow?
RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I mean, I said yesterday I feel like they've used a lot of the hard ones up. And today -- yeah, I think they've -- like they can still tuck them away.
You know, the pin on the 8th hole was tough. Yeah, I think it's been a good balance, in fairness. Like if I'm reflecting on the last three days, I think there's been a really good balance of tough pins and then pins that you can get at a little bit more.
I would expect the same tomorrow. There's going to be some that you can be aggressive to and some you just have to take your 25, 30 feet and get out of there with a par.
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