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PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

July 26, 2016

Rory McIlroy

Springfield, New Jersey

JOHN DEVER: Welcome back to the 98th PGA Championship, Baltusrol Golf Club. I'm pleased to be joined by Rory McIlroy.

Rory, welcome.

RORY McILROY: Thank you.

JOHN DEVER: This is your eighth PGA Championship, and obviously you've had some success winning a couple times. What is it about the PGA layout that excites you?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think the PGA do a great job in choosing their venues. I feel like a lot of the courses that I've played in PGA Championships have been very fair. Everything is straight out in front of you. You don't really need to trick it up much.

I think the course setup; I think Kerry and his team always do a great job there.

So it's a fair golf course. This week especially, I feel like everything's -- as I said, everything is straight out in front of you. There's no real hidden secrets to it. And I feel that's what really let's me excel. I feel like I can play my game in PGA Championships. I can hit driver off the tee the most time, and from there, if I drive it well, I feel like I have a big advantage.

It's all been a tournament that's set up well for me. I've had some good finishes here. Obviously the wins in 2012 and 2014, but then I've had a couple of top threes, a couple of Top-10s, apart from that, as well. So it's been a good tournament for me.

JOHN DEVER: Perhaps you could share with us your -- how your game -- what specific portion of your game needs to be on this week to score here?

RORY McILROY: I think two big things this week. Driving, you've got to drive the ball well. It's a long golf course for a par 70, and the two par 5s coming at the end of the course. You've got to drive the ball in the fairway, and pretty long, as well. Looking at the scorecard there, there's a lot of par 4s that are sort of up in the 480-, 500-yard mark. You've got to drive it well.

I think the greens are so big, as well. You're going to see a lot of guys hit a lot of greens. I think lag putting is going to be a big thing. If you have good speed on the greens, I think that's going to be a big help. So I think most weeks, if you drive it well and putt well, you're going to do okay.

Q. Can you just talk about how you feel about your game coming in, and how satisfying was the top five finish at Troon, given the conditions that you dealt with all week? I mean, you really didn't get the luck of the draw there.
RORY McILROY: No, I felt good. The Open was, I think the best I realistically could have finished at The Open was third. I never envisioned even with good conditions that I could get to 17-under and 20-under.

So if third was the best I could have done, fifth was okay. I felt like I played pretty well throughout the week. I felt like I handled the conditions pretty well that I had to play in. But yeah, I feel like coming to courses like this and conditions like this at Baltusrol, it's more of my type of golf I guess, and I feel like I can really do well this week. I feel like my game is in good shape.

I had some really good practice sessions with my coach, Michael Bannon last week. I feel like I'm swinging it well. I'm hitting it good. Every aspect of my game, I'm very comfortable with. So you know, combine that with the layout of the golf course here, and I feel like this is my best chance this year to win a major.

Q. As great as Tiger was, the quality of wins that we're seeing at majors now, and you just mentioned Troon and not thinking about getting to 17-under, do you feel like you're almost out there playing five to ten Tigers now, with as deep as the high quality is?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, there's no doubt that the fields are very deep. You know, any number of guys can turn up on a major championship week and win. You're looking at, you know, Henrik getting to 20-under last week, or the week before; Jason getting to 20-under par at Whistling Straits last year.

You know, I think Tiger was so good; I think if he needed to get to those numbers, he probably could have. But he did enough. He did what he needed to do.

So do I feel like I've playing five or ten Tigers out there? No. I feel like that would be disrespectful towards Tiger. But the fields are deeper and so many guys have chances to win tournaments. I feel like technology has definitely brought fields closer together. Guys are able to hit it out there as long as they need to now, and it's a matter of just doing it when it counts.

We all knew someone like Henrik was so capable of winning a major championship. With Phil pushing him all the way there -- I don't think the score was really the most impressive part of that. It was more the resilience and how they fed off one another. It was a total match-play scenario.

Golf, it's in good place in terms of how many good players we have, and I feel like it's hard to separate yourself from the pack a little bit. But that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to separate ourselves and trying to win tournaments and trying to be the best that we can, and hopefully that, in turn, is the best in the world.

Q. If you could pick one word to describe your year so far, and why would you choose that word?
RORY McILROY: I don't know, neutral. Sort of a little bit of neutral.

I feel there's been times where I got a little bit of momentum, and then sort of got set back a little bit. It's sort of been a little stop/start in a way. But it's hard. It's hard to like stay -- not stay positive. I'm trying to stay as positive as I can. I feel like I am positive because my game is in good shape. But I guess just maybe running out of patience a little bit and trying to make it happen.

I don't know if there's one word to describe this year, that's sort of a hard question. But I think you get a sense of how I've felt about the year and trying to get better and trying to get my name in the mix, and hopefully I can do that this week.

Q. A couple of busy weeks for you. Two majors in 2 1/2 weeks. How different, how challenging is that for you as an elite player?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, there's not many seasons you go where you play two tournaments in a row and they are two majors. It's been, yeah, I mean, the schedule's been a little different this year for obvious reasons.

But it is what it is, and I'm looking forward to three weeks off after this and getting ready and fresh for the FedExCup Playoffs. And then The Ryder Cup, I'm playing five weeks out of six. I'll be as fresh as I can be for that. But it's good. The guys that are in form, you come off the back of an Open, and you might play Canada last week and you're straight into here. There's no time to really dwell on anything. You can just keep going forward. It could actually be a good thing for some people.

Q. What did you work on most specifically with your game? And secondly, we're end of July here and still a lot of golf to be played, but this last major of the year, what sort of grade would you kind of give yourself for this year?
RORY McILROY: I guess I just worked on getting out of some of the things I was doing in the wind in Troon. Like I got on to my left side a little bit too much, and I'm basically just trying to sort of neutralize out my golf swing in terms of, I was leaning on it and I was trying to play little low shots and I was trying to get on top of it a little too early.

Just trying to get back to making full swings and sort of being a little freer with it. Where obviously at Troon and links golf, you're playing a lot of half-shots and curtailed follow-throughs. So basically just trying to get back to the way I sort of swing it, I guess.

And then a grade this year; I'd say like a B- maybe, B. It's okay. I could change that into an A+ on Sunday. As you say, there's a lot of golf left, last major of the year, and I want to give it my all to get in the mix and try to one another one of these things before I have to wait another eight months to try to get another opportunity at Augusta next year.

Q. Given the major championship success you've had and your standing in the game, what value does a Top-10 have to you?
RORY McILROY: I mean, I guess it's whenever you realize in a tournament that you can't win it, you start to think about World Ranking points, FedExCup points, Race to Dubai points for me, being a European.

So that's the value of it. So you're trying to, I guess you're just trying to play for whatever you can. So example, at The Open, I knew going out on Sunday, I didn't have a chance to win. So I'm thinking, okay, how close can I get to Danny Willett in The Race to Dubai; how many FedExCup points; how many World Ranking points can I get. That's the things that you're playing for, so at least you can have some mini-victories at the end of the week instead of saying, okay, I finished fifth, but what does that actually get me.

So yeah, that's really sort of -- that's the value of it, I guess.

Q. Given the competition and how deep it is at the top of the game right now, do you think it's realistic for a player, even you, to win a major every single year? And how do you deal with the fact that if you finish top five in a major, you're still going to have people looking at it like, what's wrong with Rory?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'd love to sit here and say I'm going to win a major every year for the next -- I could retire at 40 and be very happy.

Yeah, I think it is realistic, yeah, I really do. If you can win one of the four every year; if you're that good, you can do that. I think it is realistic. I think that is achievable. We've seen in the past that is achievable. That's the benchmark. That's what you're trying to get to. It's hard. As you said, it's so deep, but I guess '11, '12, '13, '14, in that stretch of four years, I averaged a major a year.

So there's no reason to think that I can't do that for the foreseeable future. Obviously that's what my benchmark is, and I feel like I can attain that. I have to play my best golf, and sometimes it's hard to come up with your best golf each and every week. But I definitely think it's attainable.

Q. Ask you to look ahead to next year. I saw you stopped in Charlotte the other day to play Quail Hollow. What was behind that decision and what do you think of the changes they made at that course, and as that tournament's only two-time winner, how do you think Quail Hollow will stack up as a major championship course?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I was in Charlotte on the weekend for a wedding, so we stopped in Charlotte for a couple of days, and then came up here.

I didn't really have much going on on the Saturday morning until the ceremony started at 3:00. So I thought I'd go, rang Johnny Harris up the day before and said I was in town. Met up with him and he showed me around the golf course.

I got to hit some shots into certain greens and some of the new tee shots. When I heard they were changing Quail Hollow, at the start, I didn't like it. I was like, what are you doing, I love this place, please don't change it.

But I think the changes are really, really good. It's made the first six holes a lot more challenging. Where in the past, you could get through the first six in sort of 2-under par, then you had loads of chances coming up, like 7, 8, 10, and all the way through on the back nine. Where now, you get through the first six holes at even par, you feel like you've played well.

So I think the changes are really good there. They have definitely improved the golf course I think. They have made it more challenging at the start, but I think the flow of the golf course is still the same, and they haven't tinkered with the finish, which is obviously one of the best finishes we play on TOUR. I think the changes have been and I'm excited to get there next year and play it in a tournament.

Q. Touching on what you were saying about the scoring explosion earlier, it's not that long since you won a major, but we've seen two 20-under pars and we saw Jordan shooting 18-under at the Masters. It's pretty much what you did at Congressional. But when you see it happening again, does it stir the competitive juices even more?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, of course it does. I think any time you walk away from a big tournament and you haven't lifted a trophy, it's going to motivate you, especially when you see the guys winning. How can you not be motivated by watching that golf on the Sunday of The Open Championship with Phil and Henrik? Just going blow for blow down the stretch, that can only give you motivation and get the juices flowing.

So yeah, of course, you see guys, and sometimes you think that should be me, and it gives you a bit of a kick in the ass to get out there and go practice.

Q. Today The European Tour announced that they are moving The Irish Open the week before the Scottish and it's going to make it a links run. Can you talk about, a, your excitement about that, and b, how much will that help the event going forward?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'm really excited about it. We've been working hard with The European Tour over the last couple years to try and find suitable venues and a suitable date for The Irish Open.

We sort of knew a long time ago that Portstewart was going to be probably where we were going to go play it in 2017. To get that date right before the Scottish is huge. To play a round of links golf leading into the Open, hopefully we can attract some marquis names to come over and play. With it being at the start of July, hopefully, fingers crossed, we can get some decent weather.

I think it can only be good for the event. I'm really excited for it. I'm excited that The European Tour have worked with us and helped us getting that date and getting suitable venues going forward. I'm excited for Portstewart next year.

Q. You seemed to have some fun with the Long Drive Contest today. Can you just talk about the contest, and would you be disappointed to not win it?
RORY McILROY: I would be. I think it's a great concept. Obviously the PGA of America have had this long drive competition for a long time. I now Jack Nicklaus still carries his money clip from 1963 when I won it wherever it was. It's a nice little accolade to have.

I hit one out there pretty good this morning. Not going to lie to you, I've been checking the board since to see if anyone's got up close to me. I saw Gary Woodland on the putting green just as he was going out, and I said, that's one of the guys I'm worried about. I thought he could maybe get it out there by me. But thankfully he missed the fairway. I don't know if I'm still on top but I hope so by the end of the day. We'll see.

But it's fun. It's a nice -- maybe they could have put it a little further, maybe on like the fifth hole or something or the sixth hole. But first tee shot of the day, you're sort of -- you don't really want to go after it. But it's a cool concept. It's a lot of fun and I think the guys enjoy it.

JOHN DEVER: Truth be told, that's the longest drive in three years since the long drive competition came back, so you did okay, even though it was your first swing.

Q. Did you get it on the screws?
RORY McILROY: I did. I hit that one good. I pulled it a little bit, so I was a little concerned it might just miss the fairway left, but it just hung on.

Q. And if you had any involvement in the scheduling of things, looking ahead to 2020, next Olympic time, when do you think would be a good time to have the PGA Championship?
JOHN DEVER: It's up to you.

RORY McILROY: I don't know. I like the date that it's at now. It's always been nice to go Masters in April, and then -- ideally what I would like to see is Masters in April, yeah. PLAYERS stay in May. You've got U.S. Open June. Open Championship July, this in August. It's a nice run of events. It's worked for so many years. So I don't see why -- I don't see any reason to change that.

Q. You're okay with it being condensed where it is where it's kind of back-to-back?
RORY McILROY: I mean, I wish I wasn't as condensed, especially going Open Championship straight in. But it's hard to move The Open any further back, because obviously Wimbledon in the U.K., and then -- it's a hard -- I'd like to see the PGA just stay where it is in the middle of August, but if that can't happen, we're just going to work around it.

Q. Following up on the long drive, what does it mean to you to be known as a big hitter, and with the low scores, what's it going to take for somebody to shoot a 62 in a major?
RORY McILROY: I feel like for my size, I hit it a long way. So I get the most out of my swing and the most out of what I have. So that's nice I guess.

And yeah, what's it going to take. We've seen so many people be so close to 62 in a major. Obviously Phil a couple weeks ago; Tiger in Tulsa, don't know how that putt didn't drop.

I sort of had a chance at St. Andrews a few years ago and missed a short putt on 17. I think it's one of those things that it's in people's minds, that 62 number, and I think once someone breaks a barrier, then you might see a whole bunch of guys go out and shoot it. But sort of 62 is that magic number in majors so far. I tell you, I'd love to be the one to break it some day.

JOHN DEVER: Thank you, sir. Enjoy your week at Baltusrol and the PGA Championship.

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