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BMW MASTERS


October 26, 2012


Rory McIlroy


SHANGHAI, CHINA

STEVE TODD:  Rory, thanks for joining us again.  A flawless 65 there today for a 12‑under total.  Your thoughts on what's been quite a good day for you out there.
RORY McILROY:  Yeah, it was a very good day.  I played very well.  I played a little better than I did yesterday.  I hit the ball a lot better, and gave myself plenty of opportunities.
When I did need to make a par putt here or there, I was able to save those, and overall it was just a very good round of golf and obviously in a great position going into the weekend.
STEVE TODD:  The scoring came in three little pockets, as it were.  A lot of the guys who were making low scores seemed to take advantage around that middle section.
RORY McILROY:  I started to make my birdies‑‑ I made a couple early on, and then I made a few around the turn.  You've got sort of 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; most of them are playing, the long‑ish ones are playing downwind and you have a few par 5s in there, too.  That is the part of the course where you want to score well.
Yeah, the last few holes are tough.  They were playing downwind, but 17 was really tricky with that pin position and 18 is always going to be a tricky hole.  So it was nice to not make any makes coming down the stretch.

Q.  Being on top of the leaderboard, is it routine at this point?
RORY McILROY:  Well, looks like it's quite routine at the minute.  I sort of said yesterday that the more you're in this position, the more comfortable you become with it and yeah, I mean, I like the fact that most weeks when I tee it up, I can get myself into contention.  This is just another one of those weeks, and obviously I'll try and continue that for as long as I can.

Q.  Would you just evaluate the fact, how important is Asia and the Emirates become for The European Tour and you as a player, if you compare the old Europe, if you will, for the tournaments next year?
RORY McILROY:  If you look at The European Tour schedule, not just next year, but the previous few years, there has been an increase of events that are played in the Middle East and the Far East.  I think it's very important for golf to spread all over the world.  China is an emerging market in terms of golf, and I think it's great that we have tournaments here.
If we can get more people in China playing golf, I think if we get just five percent of the population playing golf here, that's over 50 million people and that's going to be great for the game and the good of the game, and tournaments like this help. 

Q.  If you were to look for a break, would you make your break during the summer months?
RORY McILROY:  A break in schedule?

Q.  In former times, all the players used to make the big break during Christmas, December, and now that has completely shifted.
RORY McILROY:  I think you still do, though.  I will play probably one event in two months, in December and January time.  So I'll still have a good break then.  That will be my off‑season.  I think that's most of the guys's off‑season, too.

Q.  You're No. 1 ranked in the world and you have a lot of fans in China, a lot of local kids that even try to copy your hair style.  How do you see that, and do you enjoy having more and more local juniors go crazy about the way you play golf and the way you dress and the way your hairstyle is?
RORY McILROY:  Yeah, I don't want to say anything wrong here but I haven't seen many Chinese people with as curly hair as me.  I think it would be pretty tough to copy my hairstyle.  (Laughing).
It's great.  I never imagined I would have such an impact on so many people in terms of playing golf and young kids looking up to me and trying to emulate me in some way.  It's a great position to be in.  It's also a big responsibility to handle yourself in the right way and carry yourself properly.
It's very pleasing and very satisfying to know that you have this effect on people.  It's something that I never thought would really happen, but you know, as I say, great position to be in and a nice responsibility to have.

Q.  The distractions on the golf course or around the golf course, like fireworks and pile driving and music‑‑
RORY McILROY:  There were gunshots going off there (laughing).

Q.  How do you deal with that?  Is that really a distraction or do you put that aside like mobile phones?
RORY McILROY:  It's the same thing.  You're always going to have distractions out there, whether it be people with their cameras or movement in the crowd or fireworks or music from I don't know where it was coming from.
But yeah, I mean, once you're over your shot, you're sort of in your own little bubble and your zone and you don't really notice those sort of things.

Q.  You and your colleagues putting these distractions aside, could we perhaps see a 59 on this course or not?
RORY McILROY:  No, I don't think so.  I think‑‑ you're obviously going to give yourself a lot of chances because the targets are so big.
But I think the greens are quite difficult.  They are very slopey and sometimes quite tricky to read.  So I can't see anyone getting to 13‑under out there.  Obviously Jamie went close, 10‑under yesterday, and there's a few 8s today I think; I don't know if Karlsson shot 9 maybe.
So personally, I think 62 is the lowest you're going to see this week.  But I do hope I prove myself wrong.
STEVE TODD:  Thank you for joining us, Rory.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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