DP WORLD INDIA CHAMPIONSHIP

October 16, 2025

Rory McIlroy

Delhi GC

Quick Quotes

Q. First impressions on the golf course?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, it's pretty tricky. You're just really trying to be as conservative as possible off the tee and then trying to pick off birdies on the par-5s and maybe pick up a couple more. Yeah, it's a tricky golf course.

I thought some of the hole locations early on were really tricky. You play a practice round or a pro-am, the pins are all in the middle of the green, and then you get to tournament day and they start to tuck them away a little bit, and of course definitely played a little tougher than I expected it to today.

Q. Did I see that the big dog was out of the bag for the day?

RORY McILROY: Dog was out of the bag, probably asleep in the locker. Yeah, there's no -- I was sort of thinking about it last night before I went to bed. Well, sometimes if you're really conservative off a par-5 today, you might have like a 5-wood into the green, but I'm never going to hit driver, so I just thought I've got to 2-iron, 3-iron, 4-iron all the way through, and then I've got a 5-wood just in case I need to hit it for an approach shot on a par-5. But I just don't see any hole out there that I hit to hit it more than say 260, 270 off the tee.

Q. Now that you've seen the course is playing harder than you expected, how have you calibrated a different approach ahead of tomorrow or in your mind what you feel about scoring?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think it's similar strategy to what I did today, especially off the tee. You just have to get the ball in the fairway. The rough is unpredictable. You get a lot of fliers like I did the last two there. Yeah, maybe being a little bit less aggressive with approach shots and getting it on the right side of the pin.

The greens are so grainy that uphill putts are very slow, but then if you get it above the hole, the downhill putts with the downgrain get very, very quick, so leaving yourself below the hole is pretty important, as well.

Q. Plans for the rest of the day?

RORY McILROY: I'm going to go and relax, I think. It was an early start this morning. I was up at 4:30. So relax, might go to the spa, might do something. Then I've got a dinner tonight, so I'll just relax.