Q. I thought you squeezed a lot out of that round of golf, especially some of the off the tee misses that you had. You have to be very pleased.
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I am. I mean, only hitting three fairways today and coming up with 65 is a bit of a bonus.
But with the golf course being so soft, it's almost an advantage to be playing out of the rough going into some of these greens because you know the ball is not going to spin. I'm not saying I was trying to aim for the rough, but I was, I think, a lot of the tee shots I was just being super aggressive because I knew in the back of my mind I wasn't really being penalized for it.
The golf course is certainly not playing the way it played in 2020. That was not my approach a few years ago here.
But hopefully with the wind and the sun, the golf course starts to firm up a little bit and starts to play a little bit more like how I think it should play.
Q. What was your favorite shot today, the fairway bunker shot at 15 or the thread the needle on 17, then you go and chip it in on 17. Does that answer my question for me?
RORY McILROY: Honestly, I think I hit it over the back of the green on the third hole, I got a flier and I hit a great pitch shot from over the back of the green there. That was probably for me the best shot of the day.
Q. It really kick-started the round to keep it together at that point of the day?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, huge par save, and a big par save on 6, as well, the par-3 then, and then I birdied 7, and that got me going.
Q. What were you seeing? What did you have on 17 out of the rough? What kind of window?
RORY McILROY: The window was okay. It was more there was a couple of branches above the window I was looking at, and I was like, if it hits those, it's just going to drop down sort of near that front left bunker and I'll have a decent angle down the green and mostly have at least a 10-footer or less to save par.
It was a bit of a hit and a hope. Just trying to thread that needle and hit it straight at the 17 sign.
Yeah, it was just one of those, it was either sort of chip it out or try to take it on, and it's only Thursday, I thought, what the heck, I'll take it on and see what happens.
Q. What club was it?
RORY McILROY: 7-iron.
Q. How many times a year do you hit your driver with impunity where you don't worry -- you were trying to hit the fairway today but you were aggressive enough you didn't necessarily care?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, not that I didn't care, but it was more -- it's a nice comfort blanket to have, I guess, to swing a little harder at it.
Yeah, I wouldn't say there's many. There's a few courses on TOUR where you can sort of swing away at it and know if you miss the fairway you're usually going to be okay.
It's not as if -- I rode my luck a little bit. I got decent lies in the rough, and from there I was able to get club on the ball and control my distance okay.
Going into the next three days, I'd love to hit more fairways.
Q. Are you more pleased to play such efficient golf or more alarmed by the three fairways hit?
RORY McILROY: Oh, no, way more pleased to play efficient golf. I don't lose a lot of confidence with the driver. One bad day is not going to make me lose any sleep.
Q. Will you hit the range now and work on that or not really?
RORY McILROY: No. I've got seven more rounds in these Playoffs. I'll just conserve my energy.
Q. Was the rough difficult around the greens?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it's a little gnarly around the greens. It's sort of growing in a lot of different directions. It seems like the rough on either side of the fairways is all growing downgrain, so you're going to get a decent lie more times than not, and then you can get club on the back of the ball and sort of control your distance a little better.
Q. Playing with Lucas Glover, how would you contextualize what he's done the past couple weeks?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it's been unbelievable. I saw a thing from Data Golf a couple days ago where I think he's like the ninth best ball striker in the ShotLink era from like 2004. We know he's got the tools from tee to green. It was just a matter of him trying to figure out how to get the ball in the hole, and using this long putter, he's certainly started to figure it out.
It's great to see. He's a great guy. You're not going to find one person out on TOUR that has a bad thing to say about Lucas. I think everyone has been happy to see him play so well.
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