Rory, PLAYERS, Masters, and now the Amgen Irish Open. 2025 is the year that keeps on giving, isn’t it?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, it is. I said it out there on the green, but 2025 is going to go down as one of the best years of my career, if not the best, or at least the most memorable for a lot of different reasons.
Yeah, just an incredible week: The crowds, the atmosphere out there all week, but especially over the weekend and here in the last few groups.
Yeah, just such a thrill and such a pleasure to play in front of so many people and to feel that support and have them rooting you on down the closing stretch. I’m glad I rewarded all their support with a nice finish there on 18 and obviously getting the job done in the playoff.
As an Irish golfer growing up, one of the ones we always wanted to win is the Irish Open. I played my first Irish Open at Carton House down the road 20 years ago in 2005 with Harry on the bag, so it’s been a pretty cool journey since then. Yeah, just amazing.
Q. Well done, Rory. Can we just go back to the 72nd hole in regulation. You’re standing on the fairway and you know you need an eagle. What’s the thought process you go through? What were you talking to Harry about?
RORY McILROY: Just club selection, wind. I knew I had 202 yards downwind. I knew an 8-iron didn’t really have a chance to go as long. I felt like there would be adrenaline and if I hit it hard, I could get it all the way back there.
I caught it a tad skinny, just got a little bit late on it, but it was still a decent shot. It obviously left me that putt.
I guess the thing going through my head when I was looking at the putt was the putt I had at Royal County Down last year on 18 to try to get in a playoff with Rasmus, but it was an easy putt. It was uphill; it was right-to-left. I could be aggressive with it. I could have a go at it.
So I picked my line. I’d left a few putts short today. I just told myself, just get this one to the hole, give it a chance. It was nice to see it go right in the middle.
Q. Adding to your legacy, which you continue to do this year, just a few weeks before the Ryder Cup, you were talking earlier about looking for a W and bringing momentum into that. You pretty much did that. What does that mean to you?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I think I said a win going into the Ryder Cup, I didn’t think was necessary, but it would have been very nice and it probably would have validated the fact my game was in good shape and I was happy with where everything is.
My game is in good shape. Even if I hadn’t have won here this week, I would have walked away being pretty encouraged about where everything is. Tee to green, I felt like I was good. It was nice to be in sort of the heat of battle and in contention and having to hit different shots under pressure, especially over those last few holes where there’s a little bit of trouble here and there and you have to manage your game a little bit.
I felt like I did most things well this week, and I’ve got another week next week to just keep on trying to sharpen the tools. Not that I don’t feel this way, but I’ve got another couple weeks to feel 100 percent ready for whatever I’m going to face at Bethpage.
Q. Sticking with putts, have you ever seen a putt like that roll in at the end of a round?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, when it hit the left side and just how slow it went round the hole, like it was in slow motion. I was like, no, it can’t. I felt like there was a lot of putts this week that looked like they could have went in and they didn’t. Thankfully, it just fell in there on the front side again.
I guess with the poa greens like this and they get a little bumpy and a little soft, they can roll a little bit. It’s hard. That was a 6-footer. You don’t want to hit those in too hard. You want to try to hit them in at a decent speed, and sometimes they can wiggle offline. It wiggled just enough to go in.
I got a little bit lucky, that putt on 13 and then the drive on 15, I felt like that was a big moment in the round as well.
Q. What is it about your putting specifically and to hole 30 feet, 28 feet on the last? And how you turned it around at the start of the season to have your best statistical putting season?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I finally found my range, around 30 feet, it looks like. Yeah, it’s been a great season putting-wise. I think I finished fourth in strokes gained putting on the PGA Tour, which is by far statistically the best I’ve ever done.
I’ve worked with Brad Faxon now for the last 6 1/2 years, and I learned a few things, I think. Working with Fax has really helped, I think, the style of putter that I’ve gone, the Spider, the mallet-style putter definitely helps me in some of the strokes with the way I do, it helps me be a little more consistent.
Then when I do work with Fax, we keep it very, very simple. There’s really only a couple of thoughts that — sometimes he’ll come over to The Bear’s Club or whatever, and it’s supposed to be for a putting lesson and we don’t even hit any putts. We’ll talk about putting. We’ll grab a coffee, talk about mindset, we’ll talk about routine, and that will be it.
Sometimes I don’t even need to go and hit a putt. It’s just talking about it and just being in the right mindset. Like one of the best putts that I felt like I held today was the second putt on the second playoff hole, little slider, four feet left-to-right. That was a nice solid stroke, especially to get the ball in just before he hit his putt.
So even just little things like that, under a little bit of pressure, being able to stick to your routine, making good strokes, I have been pleased with that part of my game this year.
Q. So you’re going back in your thoughts to what you’re working with Brad in big moments and you have to hole the putts?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, you’re just thinking your process. For me it’s about keeping my right arm soft. It’s about keeping the putter level through impact and picking my spot a couple feet in front of me, lining up to that.
Yeah, I think that’s the nice thing, when you get under pressure and your routine is dialed in, it sort of makes everything a little bit better and makes everything a bit easier.
Q. You’ve been in a lot of playoffs. You lost your first couple but you’ve won the last six, including your three titles this year against J.J., Justin, and Joakim. The playoffs have been kind to you.
RORY McILROY: They have. Yeah, I started my career with a couple of losses in playoffs, three losses, I think: Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the Honda Classic, but after that it’s been much better.
I feel like playoffs in golf are a bit like tie breaks in tennis. It’s really about who blinks first. It’s almost about just being a little bit patient. On that 18th hole, we both played pretty safe the first two times. Then Joakim was probably being a little more aggressive with his second shot on the third go round and just pulled it slightly and hits it in the water.
So it’s sort of like I’ve watched a lot of tennis this week because of the US Open, and if you can just hold your serve, it really is about that. Thankfully, I did enough to get over the line.
Same thing at the Masters, same thing at THE PLAYERS. Playoffs, I feel like I’m a lot more comfortable in them. I feel like I’ve got a good strategy for them is probably the big thing.
Q. You mentioned on TV that when you holed the eagle putt on 18, it was one of the coolest moments on the golf course. How does it rank up there with the achievements you achieved on the golf course over your career?
RORY McILROY: It’s right up there. Just that scene on 18, hitting your second shot into the green, and you’ve got the grandstand and all the crowd on the right, but then half of the first fairway is full as well. It’s just absolutely incredible seeing it.
You always want to have the putt on the last green to win or do something big, and that was definitely one of them. I’ll remember that for a long time.
Q. Rory, were you watching the leaderboard throughout the round? Did you know exactly where you stood at all times?
RORY McILROY: I tried not to look at it on the front nine, and then I sort of when we were going into the back nine, I wanted to maybe have a little bit of an idea of what was going on. I birdied the 9th hole to get to like 14-under at that point.
I’m trying to think of the first leaderboard I saw. Maybe on 12? I saw I was tied for the lead maybe at that point. So the sand save on 12 was big.
Yeah, I had an idea the last sort of five or six holes, but I think up until that point, it really doesn’t do me any good to look at them because I feel then it influences my play, and it shouldn’t influence how you play coming down the last few holes. I felt like I did a good job of that.
Q. Needed to get off to a fast start, and obviously a bogey at the 1st. Is that like — is it head down at the time, the opposite of a fast start?
RORY McILROY: I felt like I hit two good shots into the 1st. We teed off in that little squall, like the conditions weren’t great starting off. I just missed the green to the right. It was a pretty simple chip shot, but because of the moisture on the ground, if just came off hot off the club, and that took me by surprise. I hit that chip shot six or seven feet high and I missed coming back.
I guess the start of the round isn’t that easy. You’ve got some chances, and you have a chance on four of the par-5s. But to bounce back straight away, the birdie on 2 was nice and then the birdie on 4 and 5, from 1-over through one to 2-under through five was nice.
Q. Rory, you said at The Open, I think it might have been on Saturday, that Scottie looks inevitable. Do you feel a bit inevitable yourself, like you’re bulletproof with the way that you’ve taken the chances that you’ve had this year and been able to put them away?
RORY McILROY: I think the more and more you get yourself in these positions, the more comfortable you are. I’m not always in a situation like we had on the back nine where there’s three or four of us in with a chance. I always feel like I always put myself in those positions and be able to find a way to get it done.
It doesn’t always work out that way, but as I said, the more you get yourself in those positions, the more comfortable you feel. I think the more experience you have, the more you figure out what is going to be enough to get the job done. I’ve played over 400 professional tournaments, and I’d like to think I’ve been in contention in at least 25 percent of them, if not more.
So I’ve had an ability to try to win big golf tournaments, and I sort of feel like I’ve got the experience to know what to do and when to press and when to be conservative. It’s just finding that balance.
