ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 5, 2022

Rory McIlroy

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. Did you feel your game was 11 shots different from today than it was on Thursday?

RORY MCILROY: No, but the course is obviously just sort of turned a little bit. Especially with the crosswinds today, it was a bit harder to hit fairways. From there, if you don't hit the fairway, it's almost impossible to hit a green.

Yeah, look, it's so tough out there. It's so tricky. It's just on a knife edge, like you're literally talking like feet. Two feet here, two feet there from 200 yards can make a huge difference in where the ball ends up.

Q. You made a couple early birdies on the back nine. What was the challenge of just fighting hard enough to have a chance tomorrow?

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I turned in 2-over, and I thought, if I can just birdie the two par-5s and get back to even par, that would be a good day. But then I made -- I did really well to come back from the bogey on 11 with birdies on 12 and 13, and then just the tee shot on 15 killed me.

Yeah, I birdied 16. It's just hard. It's just really hard to, as I said, hit greens. When you don't hit a green, you usually don't get a great lie, and when you're chipping from long rough to really firm greens, it's hard to get it close.

I feel like I've never had as many six-footers for bogeys as I've had today.

Q. When it's this hard, is it easy to lower your expectations and not get aggravated?

RORY MCILROY: It's hard because -- yeah, I don't know. I don't want to say anything that I'm going to regret, but it's -- I guess, the last few years, we sort of know what to expect coming here. It just seems to be this way over the weekend. It's just hard. It's hard not to get frustrated.

Q. Rory, Scottie Scheffler said afterwards that he didn't feel like he was out of it. He was two hours some behind the leaders and eight shots. Shot 68. He's right there. Do you feel like a lot of guys are in this tomorrow?

RORY MCILROY: A lot of guys are in this, but it's typically what you see whenever a setup is like this. A guy that tees off at 10:00 this morning shoots a decent score, and all of a sudden he's within two of the lead going in.

I remember when THE PLAYERS was in May, this used to happen all the time. Guys would go out early, early, early, first two groups on a Saturday morning, shoot a decent score, get into contention. I think Kuchar did it from the cut line. A few guys did it from the cut line. So it seems like that sort of tournament and that setup again where that happens pretty regularly.