Irish Open: Rory Mcilroy Winning Interview – Golf News | Golf magazine

Rory, players, masters and now the Amgen Irish open. 2025 is the year that continues to give, right?

Rory McIlroy: Yes, that’s it. I said it there on the Green, but 2025 will perish as one of the best years of my career, if not the best, or at least the most memorable for many different reasons.

Yes, just an incredible week: the crowds, the atmosphere that is all week, but especially on weekends and here in the last few groups.

Yes, just such a sensation and such a pleasure to play for so many people and to feel that support and make them carrot in the last part. I am happy that I have rewarded all their support with a nice finish there at 18 and clearly do the job in the play -off.

As an Irish golfer who grew up, one of which we always wanted to win the Irish Open. I played my first Irish Open in Carton House on the road 20 years ago in 2005 with Harry on the bag, so it has been a fairly cool journey since then. Yes, just great.

Q. Well done, Rory. We can just go back to the 72nd hole in regulations. You are on the fairway and you know you need an eagle. What is the thinking process that you go through? What did you talk about with Harry?

Rory Mcilroy: Just Club Selection, Wind. I knew I had 202 meters headwind. I knew that an 8-iron did not really have a chance to go so long. I felt that there would be adrenaline and if I hit it hard, I could get it all the way there.

I caught it a bit skinny, it got just a little late, but it was still a decent shot. It clearly left me that putt.

I think the thing that went through my head when I looked at the putt was the putt I had last year at the age of 18 at the age of 18 -to try to get a play -off with Rasmus, but it was an easy putt. It was uphill; It was straight to the left. I can be aggressive with it. I could try.

So I chose my line. Today I had briefly left a few putts. I just told myself, just get it in the hole, give it a chance. It was nice to see it going in the middle.

Q. Add to your legacy, which you will continue to do this year, just a few weeks before the Ryder Cup, you were talking about the search for a W and bringing momentum in it. You almost did that. What does that mean for you?

Rory Mcilroy: Yes, I think I said a victory in the Ryder Cup, I didn’t think it was necessary, but it would have been very nice and it would probably have validated the fact that my game was in good condition and I was happy with where everything is.

My game is in good condition. Even if I hadn’t won here this week, I would have walked away because I was pretty encouraged about where everything is. T -shirt to green, I felt like I was good. It was nice to be in a kind of heat of struggle and to be contrary and to have to make different shots under pressure, especially in the last few holes where there are a little problems here and there and you have to manage your game a bit.

I felt that I was doing most of the things this week, and next week I have another week to just try to grind the tools. Not that I don’t feel that way, but I still have a few weeks to feel 100 percent ready for what I will encounter at Bethpage.

Q. If you hold on to putts, have you ever seen a putt as that role at the end of a round?

Rory McIlroy: Yes, when it hit the left and how slow it was about the hole, as if it were in slow motion. I had something like that, no, that is not possible. I felt that there were many putts this week that looked like they could have entered and they didn’t. Fortunately it just fell on the front again.

I think with the Poa Greens like that and they get a little bumpy and a little soft, they can roll a little. It’s difficult. That was a 6-footer. You don’t want to hit it too hard. You want to try to hit them at a considerable speed, and sometimes they can wiggle offline. It devoted just enough to go inside.

I was lucky, that putt on 13 and then the ride at 15, I felt that that was also a big moment in the round.

Q. What is it specifically that you last hatred 30 feet, 28 feet on the last? And how you turned it around at the start of the season to have your best statistical put season?

Rory Mcilroy: Yes, I finally found my reach, about 30 feet, it looks like it. Yes, it has been a great season. I think I finished fourth in strokes that have been won on the PGA Tour, which is by far statistically the best I have ever done.

I have now worked with Brad Faxon for the past 6 1/2 years and I have learned a few things, I think. Working with fax has really helped, I think, the style of Putter I went, the spider, the putter in Mallet style certainly helps me in some of the strokes with the way I do, it helps me to be a bit more consistent.

If I work with fax, we will keep it very, very simple. There are actually only a few thoughts – sometimes he comes to the Bear’s club or whatever, and it should be for a putles and we don’t even touch puts. We’re talking about places. We take a coffee, talk about mindset, we will talk about routine, and that’s it.

Sometimes I don’t even have to hit a putt. It’s just talking about it and just being in the right mindset. Like one of the best putts I felt like I was holding today, the second putt on the second play-off hole, small slider, was four feet from left to right. That was a nice solid blow, especially to get the ball just before he hit his putt.

So even such small things, under a bit of busy, because I can stick to your routine, make good strokes, I have been satisfied with that part of my game this year.

Q. So you go back in your thoughts to what you work with Brad at big moments and you have to holes the puts?

Rory McIlroy: Yes, you just think of your process. For me it is about keeping my right arm soft. The point is the putter level by keeping an impact and taking my place a few feet in front of me, which are in line with it.

Yes, I think that’s nice, if you are under pressure and your routine is berped, it makes everything a little better and makes everything a little easier.

Q. You have been to many play -offs. You have lost your first pair, but you have won the last six, including your three titles this year against JJ, Justin and Joakim. The play -offs have been nice for you.

Rory McIlroy: they have. Yes, I started my career with a few losses in play -offs, I think: Switzerland, Hong Kong and the Honda Classic, but after that it was much better.

I feel that play -offs in Golf look a bit like tie breaks in tennis. It’s really about who first blinks. It’s almost just a bit patient. On that 18th hole we both played reasonably safe the first twice. Then Joakim was probably a bit more aggressive with his second shot on the third time and pulled it a bit and hits it in the water.

So it’s a bit like I watched a lot of tennis this week because of the US open, and if you can just hold your serve, it really goes. Fortunately I have done enough to cross the line.

The same with the masters, the same with the players. Play -offs, I feel that I am much more comfortable in it. I feel that I have a good strategy for them is probably the big thing.

Q. You mentioned on TV that when you held the Eagle Putt on 18, it was one of the coolest moments on the golf course. What about the performance you achieved on the golf course during your career?

Rory Mcilroy: It’s up there. Only that scene on 18, which touches your second shot in the green, and you have the stand and all the audience on the right, but then half of the first fairway is also full. It’s just absolutely incredible to see 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 will remember that for a long time.

Q. Rory, did you look at the leaderboard throughout the round? Did you know exactly where you were at all times?

Rory Mcilroy: I tried not to look at the front nine, and when I was a kind of when we went nine in the back, I might have wanted a bit of an idea of ​​what was going on. I have the 9th hole poultry to like 14 under that moment.

I try to think of the first classification I saw. Maybe at 12? I saw that I was tied before the leadership at that time. So save the sand at 12 was large.

Yes, I had an idea of ​​the last kind of five or six holes, but I think until that moment, it really doesn’t do me to look at them because I feel that it influences my game, and it should not have an influence on how you play the last pair of holes. I felt that I did that well.

Q. Needed to start quickly, and clearly a bogey on the 1st. Is that like – is the head down, the opposite of a fast start?

Rory McIlroy: I felt that I was hit two good shots in the 1st. We got away in that little mood, as if the circumstances were not great to start. I just missed the green to the right. It was a fairly simple chip shot, but because of the moisture on the floor, if it was just the club, and that took me surprised. I hit that Chipschot six or seven feet high and I missed coming back.

I think the start of the round is not that simple. You have some opportunities and you have a chance of four of the par-5s. But to bounce back immediately, the Birdie was 2 beautiful and then the bird on 4 and 5, from 1-over to 2-under to five was fun.

Q. Rory, you said open, I think it could have been Saturday that scottie looks inevitably. Do you feel a bit inevitable yourself, as if you were bulletproof with the way you have taken the opportunities you have had this year and have been able to store them?

Rory Mcilroy: I think the more and more you get in these positions, the more comfortable you are. I am not always in a situation like we had on the back nine where we have three or four of us. I always feel that I have always placed myself in those positions and find a way to get it done.

It doesn’t always come true, 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 find out what is going to be enough to do the job. I have played more than 400 professional tournaments, and I would like to think that I have been contrary to at least 25 percent of them, if not.

So I had the opportunity to try to win large golf tournaments, and I feel that I have the experience to know what to do and when I have to press and when I have to be conservative. It is just finding that balance.