THE 153RD OPEN

July 18, 2025

Rory McIlroy

Mixed Zone

Q. Your thoughts on another battling day out there today.

RORY McILROY: Another solid day. A couple under, improved a little bit on yesterday, hit it in play a little bit more off the tee, which was nice to have some looks out of the fairway and into some of these greens.

Yeah, it was a good day. I feel like I maybe could be a couple closer to the lead, but overall in a decent position heading into the weekend.

Q. Still very much well placed. How much are you looking forward to what's going to be an exciting weekend here in front of these crowds?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I'm excited for that opportunity. I didn't have this opportunity six years ago, so to play an extra two days in this atmosphere in front of these crowds, I'm very excited for that. I feel like my game's definitely good enough to make a run. So as I said, I'm excited for the weekend.

Q. It looked like you were kind of getting really to grips with your long game towards the end of the first round and second round. It's almost like the crowd are willing you to play well and you're willing yourself to stay in contention, but when will you start kind of flowing?

RORY McILROY: I don't know if you can ever flow -- this golf is very demanding. It's quite visually intimidating off the tee. I think you see like the bunched nature of the leaderboard. It's one of these places where you know the holes you have to make par, you know the holes you have to make birdie, and everyone sort of has to play the golf course the same way. Everything becomes pretty bunched.

Yeah, you can, if you have one of those out of the blue days and you can get it going, but for the most part, you're just trying to pick off your birdies on the easy holes and honestly like hold on with some of these really tough par-4s.

Q. You said you felt like in 2019 you let the fans down by not making the cut. What does it mean for you to be here in front of the people who followed you your whole career?

RORY McILROY: I feel like I let myself down more than I let the fans down, but I definitely felt like it was -- yeah, it was a hard pill to swallow, but at the same time, I left myself too much to do.

Then this time, yeah, I've just gotten better. I know what I need to do to get the best out of myself in an environment like that. I've been somewhat close to my best over the first two days in little bits here and there. I'm going to need to have it all under control and have it sort of all firing over the weekend to make a run.

Yeah, it's incredible to play in front of these fans. I was saying to Tim Barter at SKY, it was 20 years ago that I played the North of Ireland here, and never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd be coming back as a grand slam champion with the support of a nation behind me trying to win an Open Championship.

I count myself very grateful and very lucky that I'm in this position, and I'm excited for the weekend.