Top Five Q & A With World Number One Rory McIlroy
The Men's World Number One ranked golfer, Rory McIlroy, answered questions from the media before heading out for a late afternoon practice round at Chambers Bay ahead of the 2015 U.S. Open.
Here is a selection of those questions and answers:
Q. LeBron James just talked about being the No. 1 player in the world, basketball player, and I don't know if that's super confidence or arrogance or perhaps a psychological ploy as he goes for the NBA championship. As the No. 1 player in the world, can you relate to that somehow? And as the No. 1 player, can that be a psychological ploy for you?
RORY McILROY: I mean, I think when LeBron talks about that, that's not confidence, that's a fact, I guess, when you look at how he's carried his team in these Finals. So if you look at the numbers, you can really see he is the best player in the world. And I guess for me I feel the same way, when I look at the World Rankings and I see my name up at the top. If you look back at the last four or five years, I guess I've won more majors than anyone else in that time period. So do I feel like the best player in the world? Yes. And obviously I want to go out every week and try to back that up and show that.
Q. Going back to 2002, the Europeans have won six of the last seven Ryder Cups. And after a long drought now, Europeans have won four of the last five U.S. Opens. Is there a connection there or is that just coincidental?
RORY McILROY: Honestly I think there's a direct correlation between Europeans winning Ryder Cups and Europeans winning major championships. I think it's given Europeans the confidence to come over here and compete, three of the four major championships are in this country. And most likely you're competing against players that you compete against at the Ryder Cup. So I think having that success in the Ryder Cup has translated into major victories for European players.
Q. Does this course really play like a links course?
RORY McILROY: Oh, yeah, yeah, it plays more like a links course than some links courses. I mean, it's so fast, so firm. It reminds me of 2013 at Muirfield at the Open. Was it '06 at Hoylake when Tiger won there? It reminds me like that. The course is getting burned out, it's getting dry. It's a pure links test this week.
Q. Speaking of No. 1 earlier, your accomplishments already approach Tiger's at the same age and you've experienced some ups and downs off the course, as well, and seen how it affects your game. As you look at it, what do you think it takes, what would be the key to maintain No. 1 as long as Tiger did? Can you approach that?
RORY McILROY: I think the biggest thing is motivation. It's setting your goals all the time and trying to achieve those. In a golf perspective, it's just trying to get better, trying to achieve more things and set goals for yourself and try and accomplish that. And then off the course, you have to be stable, be happy, keep it simple. I think that's the big thing. If you want your longevity in golf, you look at the likes of -- you're going back to the day of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, they all had very stable personal lives and kept life fairly simple. And I think that's a big key to having a long and successful career.
Q. You mentioned kind of piggybacking off the difficulty you had in 2013, obviously different than here. But do you like it this firm and this fast? And secondly, what's the challenge for you coming in off a break, one that you didn't play so great at Royal County Down and having to sort of get that momentum back that you had prior to that?
RORY McILROY: Yeah, I do like it this firm and fast because, as I said, I feel with some of the elevated approach shots you play around here, you need to be able to hit the ball up in the air with quite a lot of spin, which fortunately I'm able to do. Even though the conditions are going to be similar to Muirfield, it's not going to be -- you're not going to have to play the same style of golf. There's a lot of greens here that it's not like you can run the ball in. You might have to go to one side of the green or the other to sort of bank them in.
There are a lot of greens that are like bowls. But you're still going to have to play shots up in the air and try and get a little bit of spin on them to control it somewhat on these greens. And honestly, I don't feel like I need to pick up any sort of momentum after the last couple of weeks -- the last couple of weeks I've had off. I played well for, I guess, my last three tournaments in the States, and then I went over to Europe and obviously wasn't quite as good as it was for the weeks previous to that.
But as I said, my game feels in really good shape and I'm hitting the ball well and I'm confident, so I think it really is just about getting the right game plan and being -- as I said at the start, if you're sharp with the driver and sharp with the putter from basically 30 yards and in, that's going to be a big key this week.