PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 12, 2026

Rory McIlroy

Aronimink Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to the 108th PGA Championship. We're pleased to be joined by two-time PGA Champion Rory McIlroy.

Rory, welcome to Aronimink and your 18th PGA Championship. What have you seen from the golf course so far?

RORY McILROY: I only got up here last night. I played two Fridays ago, I guess it was. Yeah, we played here back in 2018 at the BMW. I don't think the course necessarily played the way it will play this week. It was a very wet that week. It looks like there's going to be a little bit of rain Thursday night into Friday morning.

For the most part, it should be a bit drier, which really brings out the character of the greens. The greens seem to be the big defense and the big talking point of the golf course.

Yeah, it reminds me, we played Philly Cricket Club last year for a PGA TOUR event. It reminds me a little of that, very wide playing corridors. Still got to get the ball on the fairway. The rough is sort of hit-and-miss, but you can get some bad lies. It's all about -- you know, they can really tuck the pins away with some of these slopes on the greens and just really being aware of that.

I think from 2018 to then playing a couple weeks ago -- and sort of, I don't know if I'd forgotten or the course didn't play this way, but if you get yourself above the hole or you start to short-side yourself, you can get yourself in some tricky spots.

But keeping the ball below the hole -- yeah, it's a course where you can be super aggressive off the tee, and then there's a little more strategy and a little more thought going into the greens.

Q. Rory, could you go through the thought process of the schedule taking three off and then playing the week before a major. Was it something that you had planned to do before the Masters, or did winning the Masters dictate the next month?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I was never going to play Hilton Head or Zurich. I was tentatively planning to play Doral, and then I got invited to that White House State Dinner the night before on a Tuesday night, which I thought was a wonderful opportunity.

To go down to Doral and then fly up to D.C. for that and then fly back down, it probably just wasn't -- if I wasn't giving my 100 percent attention to the tournament, then there's no reason to play it, right.

So I decided to -- I wanted to do the State dinner, and if I was going to do that, it was probably better that I take that week to practice and prepare, come up here and see the golf course, and then go into Quail Hollow feeling more ready to play.

Q. You mentioned your 18th PGA. As far as this rota and in terms of the way that you prepare, has it changed from when you won for the first time in '12, and obviously very different golf courses '12 and '14, is approach and process similar even though they have more elasticity to their rota than even the U.S. Open?

RORY McILROY: Yeah, I would say I always sort of grouped Akron and the PGA together as that sort of two-week stretch after The Open. Honestly, since the tournament has moved to May, my results haven't been that great here at the PGA.

Yeah, I feel like it's a very tight window between the Masters and this tournament. It doesn't seem -- obviously this used to be in August. I think you had the ability to maybe go to March -- even though we're in the northeast this week, it looks like it's going to be good weather.

August maybe provided more of an opportunity to come to the northeast a little more often.

Yeah, it's a different proposition nowadays that it's in May than it was in August, and there's pros and cons to that. I think the schedule is so condensed, and it's really just trying to figure out what the best lead-in is.

For me, I'm never going to miss Quail Hollow last week. It's a place I love to play. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the year, and it seems like that is going to be the event leading into this week.

So a bit like Akron, PGA in August, it seems like it's going to be Quail Hollow, PGA going forward, and that's okay with me.

Q. Kind of related to Gary's question, have you heard about the stealth committee, the committee to resurrect Walter Hagen?

RORY McILROY: No.

Q. Can I tell you very briefly about it?

RORY McILROY: Sure.

Q. He proposes that the first major of the year should be the PGA Championship played under the following conditions. Three rounds at the Pebble Beach links, 54 holes. The winner of that gets the Bing Crosby medal. Then the Top 16 play match play Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon at the Cypress Point club, and the winner of those four matches is the PGA Champion, and it would be the first major of the year. I know you probably haven't heard much about it and springing a lot on you here, but I'm wondering what you think about it?

RORY McILROY: Sounds amazing. I thought we didn't like 54-hole tournaments, though?

Q. It's just the qualifying.

RORY McILROY: Ah, okay. That's just the qualifying? Okay, that's nice. Any opportunity to play Cypress Point would be good with me, absolutely.

Yeah, look, match play has been a big talking point, possibly talking about it for The TOUR Championship at the end of the year going forward.

I think match play is the purest form of the game. I think it's a shame that we don't have any match play really in the schedule apart from the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup. It would be nice to get some more match play on the schedule for sure.

Q. Rory, you spoke at Augusta about the time between shots, the time to think, the time between shots and the time between rounds. I'm wondering what you learned about the time between majors, how you prepare, not just logistically but mentally, to get up every four weeks for these big tournaments?

RORY McILROY: Again, it's a much more condensed schedule than it used to be. We used to go from April to the end of August. It's now April to the middle of July.

So it's condensed, and you have to -- I think that's why I need to -- especially after the last couple of years, I need to take the time after the Masters to reset and decompress and get myself in the right mental space again to get myself up for this tournament and keep going for the U.S. Open and The Open Championship.

Obviously there's some tournaments in between those as well. Yeah, I think I came into this tournament last year a little bit sort of uncertain of what my future was -- just like I conquered this thing that I wanted to conquer for so long, and I was a little bit -- you know, I still hadn't really reset goals or found whatever that motivation was to keep going or go forward and set myself goals for the rest of my career. It probably took me a good few months to get to that point.

As I've said, like last week, coming into this tournament feels a lot different than what it did last year. I feel like I've got some nice clear road ahead to try to get some more of these majors.

Q. What do you like about Aronimink?

RORY McILROY: I like the style of golf. I like the bunkering. There's a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par-4s, a couple of longer par-4s. The par-3s, there's three pretty long ones and a shorter one.

I think in this day and age I'm not sure if it's going to test all aspects of your bag. There's going to be a lot of -- again, as I said, strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent.

It's, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer -- newly renovated -- I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.

But the greens are -- as I said at the start, the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That's the key this week.

Again, I've only played four competitive rounds here. I don't know the place that well to give you a great answer on what I like about it, but Philadelphia's a wonderful golfing city, a lot of great golf courses, and this is certainly one of them.

Q. I'm curious what you admire most about Scottie, his game, his mind, the way he sustains at the top?

RORY McILROY: I think it is, it's his relentlessness. It's his -- the comfort in which he does the same things over and over. It's the little -- it's not flashy, but he dots his Is and crosses his Ts and does all the right things.

Yeah, I just think it's that relentless pursuit of the process and not just letting the outcome happen. Whatever that means is what it means.

I've said, again, I think his faith has a big part to do with how comfortable he is with doing that because he accepts whatever happens, whatever comes his way, and he moves on.

He just doesn't seem -- there's not a lot of volatility there in his life and in his game, and I think that sets him up so well for the future.

Q. The White House dinner, Devil Wears Prada 2 cameo, Masters repeat champion; how would you describe your last couple months?

RORY McILROY: Pretty good. Yeah, it's been -- look, I think -- I know how fortunate I am and so lucky to be in this position in life, and sometimes you have to enjoy the perks because I know that this isn't going to last forever.

There's going to be a day where I'm not sitting up here and I'm not competing for major championships and I'm not doing what I'm doing. So I guess while I'm doing it, I have to enjoy it, as well.

Yeah, it's been amazing, but there's still a lot of things I want to achieve. But if I can enjoy it along the way, that's a nice thing to do.

Q. Could you give a few more details on your trip here a couple weeks ago, how much time you spent on the course. Do you think more guys should be coming to a major site ahead of time? Will you go to Shinnecock? Will you go to Frisco? If you can keep track of all that, I'd be obliged.

RORY McILROY: I flew up in the morning. I played -- I probably spent five hours on the golf course, headed back to the airport and flew home. It was just I wanted to just get an early look because I knew that was going to be my only opportunity to do so.

Do I think -- I think -- yeah, I think there's an argument to maybe not having these Signature Events the week before majors or the weeks after majors to allow guys to maybe prep for the major championships a little bit better.

But I definitely think courses we don't see very often, whether it's here or Shinnecock or Frisco, it's probably -- it certainly has benefited me over the years. I remember the first time I did it for a major championship was Congressional in 2011 on the back of a recommendation from Jack Nicklaus. So it's helped me over the years.

Some majors, I haven't went to the tournament site ahead of schedule, and I've done well, but for the most part when I have made an advanced trip, it's worked out well for me.

It also gives me the ability to go home on Sunday night, see Erica and Poppy yesterday, and then come up here and not feel stressed about having to play a lot of holes or get up here early. I can take more of a relaxed approach going into the week.

Q. Rory, you talked about this a little bit last week in Charlotte, the PIF decision.

RORY McILROY: Yes. Love talking about this, Bob.

Q. As someone who at one time advocated, I believe, for the TOUR to make a deal with them or to come to an agreement to invest, I'm just curious what your level of surprise is now that they're going the other way and pulling their funding.

RORY McILROY: I'm glad I was wrong. I can admit when I'm wrong, and that was one that I did get wrong.

I think it was always a possibility to happen. Look, I think everyone knows like with everything that's happening in the Middle East, that had a lot to do; but whenever you have funding tied so much to the geopolitical landscape in the world, that's a tricky road to navigate.

Yeah, their priorities shifted, and that lives LIV in a pretty precarious spot, but again, that was always -- it was always a possibility. I feel like a lot of us in this room, including me, we almost knew before the players did that this was going to happen. Like I was hearing about this back in March, April time.

Look, I have friends over there. One of my best friends, Ricky, caddies for Tom McKibbin, who's over there, and I would talk to him all the time about what was going on. I was saying to Ricky, even before Mexico, Have you guys heard any of this stuff?

He was like, No, everything seems okay over here.

It just feels like the rug was pulled from under their feet and everyone was sort of blind sided by it.

But again, that's the risk that those guys chose to take. As I said, it leaves -- there's a lot of uncertainty in the air right now.

Q. Do you have any sense for their prospects now going forward having to go it alone?

RORY McILROY: I don't. I'm not privy to the deals they have. I guess from what I read they've got some sponsorship revenue for I don't know how long that those commitments are.

It's certainly going to -- look, if they do somehow get a schedule together for next year, it seems like it's going to look drastically different to what it's looked like over the last four years.

Q. I'll change the subject for you.

RORY McILROY: Thank you.

Q. With the majors, the Signature Events, it's usually you guys, the more established players that wins those events. What do you think about Kristoffer Reitan coming in, a newbie like is he on the PGA TOUR, coming in and winning the one last week?

RORY McILROY: I think it's amazing. I also think it speaks to the incredible pathway the DP World Tour players have to get their cards. You get your PGA TOUR card out of that, play your way into the Signature Events, and then it's the system working.

You know, it's the meritocracy. It's that upward trajectory that you can get on whenever you -- when you play well and you shoot the scores. And Kristoffer last week is a prime example of that.

It was amazing to see. When I finished and I was obviously out of the tournament and didn't have a chance to see all the Europeans up there around the lead, that's amazing. Nicolai, as well. Obviously, Alex; Tommy.

Yeah, I think, again, it just speaks to that incredible pathway for the DP World Tour players, and then also it's a wonderful opportunity for them.

Kristoffer comes over here, cements himself as a PGA TOUR winner, one of the -- arguably one of the biggest events on the TOUR. But then also what a great thing that is for the DP World Tour when the PGA TOUR finishes in August that Kristoffer will go back, play DP World Tour events until the end of the year, and that brings more attention, that brings more excitement to those tournaments at the end of the year. So I think it's an amazing thing.