ABU DHABI HSBC GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

November 5, 2025

Rory McIlroy

Yas Links

Press Conference

CLARE BODEL: Welcome back to the Media Centre here at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. By all accounts, it's been an incredible year for. How would it feel to wrap things up with more success in the Middle East?

RORY McILROY: I think about the last time I was in the UAE which was the Desert Classic back in January and everything that's happened in between, yeah, it's been an amazing year.

I was saying earlier today, I love getting to this part of the world, starting in the UAE and finishing. With everything that's happened with the Masters and The PLAYERS and Irish Open, Ryder Cup, everything, yeah, it would be a lovely way to finish the year.

I'm excited to have another opportunity to win The Race to Dubai. I don't think it's going to be quite as comfortable as it has been the last couple years but I'm excited for that challenge. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks.

CLARE BODEL: Obviously you have an incredible record here in Abu Dhabi but not the trophy yet. Is that the main focus for this week?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think it's nine top threes but no wins. I'd love to get my hands on that Falcon Trophy. Been close. I played well last year. Paul Waring was just a little bit better than all of us that week.

Yeah, I'd love to get myself into contention. Yeah, I'd love to give myself a chance here and give myself into an even better position going into Dubai next week, as well.

Q. What you just said about The Race to Dubai, is it good to have someone like Marco, a young buck, chasing you?

RORY McILROY: Absolutely. I like that I'm having to lock in for these two events. And with how many points that are available here and feedback, yes, it's Marco that's right behind me, but there's a few others that have a chance, as well.

I know I'm going to have to play well these next couple of weeks but I've got good records here and next week at the Earth Course as well. I know if I play the way that I know that I can, hopefully everything will work out the right way.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'm looking forward to feeling that again and trying to win another one.

Q. Marco said you had never played together before. Are you looking forward to seeing his game, and then with his backstory and everything?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, he's done amazingly well, even coming back in April after not playing for a few months and winning in Hainan and continuing and playing well throughout the summer. I think he finished tied second with me at The Scottish Open, and obviously Denmark and Spain. He's played great. He's sort of that modern golfer, hits it long, and seems to not really have a ton of weaknesses.

Yeah, looking forward to seeing his game over the next couple days, and you know, with how this course sets up and how firm the fairways are, I think you're going to see a few long drives out there.

Q. Are you longer than him?

RORY McILROY: I don't know. He should be longer. He's nine years younger than me.

Q. Not to get political but there's the story yesterday with LIV announcing that they are moving to 72 holes and people suggesting that that might pave the way for them to get Official World Golf Rankings. What's your take on that, and do you think they should start getting the ranking points?

RORY McILROY: I think it's a peculiar move because I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds. I don't think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back.

Yeah, I don't -- it certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we've all done. It brings them back into not really being a destructor and sort is of falling more in line with what everyone else does. But if that's what they felt they needed to do to get the ranking points, I guess that's what they had to do.

Yeah, I think what's hard is you've got the LIV guys, and say potentially they get World Rankings, but because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don't know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them.

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Q. After being in India several weeks before, someone that's good at traveling as you, and with the friend ships you've created in the Middle East, when people talk to you about the region and the people, what do you have to say to them?

RORY McILROY: I've spent the majority of my time in this region in the united Arab Emirates, so I can only speak on mostly the Emiratis that I've befriended and become close with. I feel like Emiratis are the most welcoming people in the world. I feel like the hospitality, the welcome you get here, everyone wants to make you feel comfortable.

It's an amazing place with, yeah, very, very generous, amazing people. Yeah, I've obviously been coming here for a long time, and as you said, I've made a lot of friends in this region. Some friends, I would call some of my closest, and yeah, it's always amazing to come back and spend time with them.

Q. I wanted to ask you another question. I know a week is not too long a time, and especially when you are playing a competition, as well, but is there something that you have managed to take from the land of spirituality, if I can call it?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I had an amazing time in India. I wish I was able to get out and see a little bit more of even just Delhi in general. Obviously Diwali was coming up; and the traffic was so bad, and you're just sitting in a car for so long. I would have loved to have taken in a few more of the sites. Hopefully if I go again year, and take Erica and Poppy, we can do the Taj Mahal and maybe go to Rajasthan for a few days. People tell me that Rajasthan is absolutely incredible. I would love to do that. I felt like I saw the hotel and the golf course, and maybe a couple more things. But I'd love to go there and really, really experience it.

But I had an amazing time. The people were incredible. I'm looking forward to hopefully going back again.

Q. Two questions. This time last year, you were talking about cutting down your schedule, and you did, and you're leading and closing in on Colin Montgomerie's titles. Do you think that will be the way forward for the next season, as well?

RORY McILROY: I would say, if anything, playing even less than I have this year. I think I'll play the same amount of tournaments on the DP World Tour, if not more, but I've alluded to the fact that I'm going to play a little bit less just throughout the year. Really prioritise the major championships and a few of the other bigger events.

But the world of golf does a really good job of keeping you -- I describe it as keeping you on the hamster wheel. And sometimes it's nice to get off that hamster wheel and do things your own way.

Look, I'm not getting any younger. If I want to play competitively for another ten years like Justin Rose has, for example, I have to remember that I'm not 23 anymore and I can't play that schedule forever. So I think to try to have the longevity that I want to have, I'm going to have to cut back my schedule a little bit over these next few years to make sure I stay injury-free and I play up until the point that I want to.

Q. Since you are a fan favourite of the region, the MENA Golf Tour, I don't know have if you have heard about it but one of the prodigies to come out is Robert MacIntyre; so he has done well from that tour. Do you have any input or your thoughts about the tour reviving, the MENA Golf Tour?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I don't know much about it. But I think any region in the world that provides pathways for players to play and gets bigger stages, I think is a really good thing.

Q. In the grand scheme of things, obviously this week doesn't compare to what you've already achieved this year, but is there a nagging feeling that you haven't won here? I wonder how you deal with the nagging tournaments that you haven't ticked off, and are there any other tournaments that give you the same feeling as coming into this week?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, there are a few. This is definitely one of them. One thing I would say is that since this tournament has moved to this time of the year, I feel like it's I don't want to say easier to win but you're more in the season, where I feel like it was always my first start of the year; and I may be got off to a slow start, find my feet the last two days, and I'd go to Dubai and win that one.

It more like you're sort of in the run of the season here. So you're maybe a little sharper, and you know where your game is at. I'm not saying it's easier to win because of that, but I would say there's a better chance this time of the year.

Yeah, there are; this is one I've been close to winning and haven't. I would say the Memorial Tournament would be a nice one to win to shake Jack's hand on the back of the 18th green there, and Riviera, another one; Tiger hosts that one. There's still a few out there that I want to knock off.

Q. There is a game with you and Tyrrell and Marco and another with Rasmus, Tommy and Shane. With your experience playing outside Europe, how do you think that the level of the European golf is seen worldwide regarding this tour, and what can be done to even improve it?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I don't think anyone's doubting the quality of the golfers that come from this tour or outside of America, for example. That's been shown. You look we've won the last nine of the 13 Ryder Cups. The top of the European game is very good.

What I would say is the depth of the fields in America are probably just a little deeper. But I'd say the quality at the top of Europe is very similar to what it is anywhere else in the world.

And it's then just trying to get all the best players together a little more often. I think because the game is so fractured at the minute, you don't get the best fields playing against each other all the time. It's very seldom. It's the four major championships, and then maybe a few other times throughout the year.

But it is nice to come to this tournament or next week in Dubai, and you've got pretty much all the best players from Europe and the rest of the world, playing against each other, which is as a competitor, that's what you want. You want to tee up in tournaments that have the best fields and knowing that if you've come out on top, you've beaten pretty much everyone there is to beat.

Q. In your list of achievements in your career, the Spanish Open is on that list, you're saying, how do you keep pushing yourself to perform at these incredible levels?

RORY McILROY: I never lost -- I think I never lost belief in myself. I never lost hope. This is what I love to do. I obviously believe that each and every year that I play golf, I can still get better. I still think that I can get better at the game.

I still think there's things that I can improve on, and you know, there's been people that have been at my press conferences for the last five years, and I've said that consistently. I feel like I'm a better player now than I was ten years ago, and what, when I'm 46 and not 36, I don't know if I'll be able to say that.

But I definitely think that I can still keep improving in certain areas and get even better. That's a fun thing to be able to say nearly 20 years into a professional career.

CLARE BODEL: On that note, thank you, Rory. Thank you, everyone.