Paul McGinley concerned after Rory McIlroy's ‘very worrying' US Open press conference
'It was very worrying looking at his press conference there,' MccGinley said on Golf Channel's "Live From" show. 'His eyes weren't alive. The energy was not there.
'He certainly didn't have the pointy elbows the way we saw coming into the Masters. He was a man on a mission, he was a man on a bounce, he was a man out to prove something. 'Get out of my way, here I come. I've got something to accomplish.' You could see that and feel the energy.
'You don't see it at the moment. I know from my own experience, when you win tournaments, you check out. You don't feel the same. You want to be there and you put in the energy but something inside you is just missing.'
McGinley added: 'I'm no psychologist but it looks like the air has been sucked out of him a little since that, not just in the way he's played but in his press conferences.
'It's very un-Rory-like in his press conferences to have such low energy. There will be a reset at some stage and it doesn't look like it'll come this week. His team are saying he's playing okay.
'But this is not normal Rory. This is not when he's at his best in my opinion. I think he's at his best when he's p****d off and he's out to prove something following off a big loss or something that went wrong.'
McIlroy was upbeat throughout his two nine-hole practice rounds with Shane Lowry on Tuesday and Wednesday and looked to be hitting the ball well.
While he missed the occasional fairway, he also hit some brilliant drives and approach shots and spent time after both morning practice rounds hitting balls on the range with every club in the bag.
The Co Down man admitted in his press conference that getting back to work after winning the Masters was a challenge but that he couldn't afford to relax this week.
'Look, you dream about the final putt going in at the Masters, but you don't think about what comes next,' McIlroy said.
'I think I've always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. 'I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you've just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you've achieved a goal.
'I think chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I'm allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit. But here at Oakmont, I certainly can't relax this week.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
'It went from my least favourite major to my favourite' - Rory McIlroy's mind sharpens as Oakmont looms
Plans and targets, goals and motivations, the driving why, the guiding north star. Rory McIlroy, it is clear, doesn't really have any of the above right now. Not like he had them before April 13, anyway. But eight-plus weeks of shrugging and pausing and pensive pondering, hasn't stopped McIlroy being pressed on all of the above either. Tuesday at Oakmont was another such occasion. In its setting and presentation it's a pre-tournament press conference but for the post-Augusta 2025 version of McIlroy, such things have become something else. Lifestyle therapy session meets corporate job interview meets high-performance podcast. Interspersed between the enquiries around his driver, the devilish rough around Oakmont and strength versus length, McIlroy was pushed on a 'five-year plan for this next phase of Rory' and 'resetting difficulties' and 'regaining motivation' in his professional life. The tone is such that McIlroy might swivel in his chair and see he was in fact joined at the top table by fellow panellists such as Tony Robbins or Marie Kondo. The Japanese organisational guru may love mess. McIlroy doesn't. But on the course things have been messy since the Masters. Last week in Toronto they were a holy show. This week, Oakmont's wild fringes are primed to make a shambles of US Open scorecards for those who aren't completely locked in. That's something McIlroy knows this all too well. In between the pauses and deep-ish thoughts, he revealed that he needed back-to-back closing birdies to avoid carding an 81 during a practice session at the Pittsburgh course last week. Tuesday's nine-hole tune-up alongside Shane Lowry, the friends setting off at first light, had thankfully gone a good bit better. But back to that five-year plan? "I don't have one,' McIlroy replied. 'I have no idea.' At Augusta McIlroy lifted 11 years of slow-seeping existential dread. Then he lifted a replica of the clubhouse and put on a green jacket. Since, he's not had so much as a five-day plan. Last weekend, when a first missed cut of the year gave him unexpected time off, he spent some of it playing tennis with Harry Diamond. Hobbies are more important to him now. He's been travelling with the family too. Motivations, quirky things at the best of times, have changed. It was striking that after McIlroy left the interview room, Bryson DeChambeau followed him in. The tone was…different. The reigning champion, who held strong when McIlroy imploded at Pinehurst last year, was asked about his motivations. "Doing it for the fans, patrons and the people that are viewing myself on YouTube,' DeChambeau replied. 'That's really what gets me up in the morning.' More YouTube then, Rory. Yet the McIlroy mind has sharpened. Landing in to the week of a tournament which 'went from probably my least favourite major to probably my favourite because of what it asks from you' does that. 'I think it's [about] trying to have a little bit of amnesia and forget about what happened six weeks ago,' McIlroy said. 'I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year all the way up until April this year. It was nice to sort of see the fruits of my labour come to fruition and have everything happen. You have to enjoy that. 'At some point, you have to realize that there's a little bit more golf left to play this season: here, Portrush, Ryder Cup. Those are obviously the three big things that I'm looking at.' Oakmont wasn't kind to him in 2016. It kicked off a run of three-straight missed US Open cuts. Since, he has six top-10s in a row with back-to-back second-place finishes. To extend that run, many things have to be fixed. But first thing's first. The opening tee shot and the biggest club in the bag which will be used to hit it. Having quickly returned to Florida from Toronto Friday, McIlroy was asked what he had learned at home? 'I learned that I wasn't using the right driver,' he replied to laughter. During his back nine practice with Lowry, McIlroy used a TaylorMade Qi10 driver. That was the model he swung to success at the Masters only to see his favoured one fail a compliance test prior to the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. Since then things have been far from reliable as he cycled between replacements and the Qi35 model which let him down in Canada. 'Every driver has its own character and you're trying to manage the misses,' McIlroy said. 'As the last few weeks go, I learnt a lot on Thursday and Friday last week and did a good bit of practice at home and feel like I'm in a better place with everything going into this week.' Asked how big an impact it had made at Quail Hollow not to have his 'gamer' driver, McIlroy pointed to the eventual winner: 'it wasn't a big deal for Scottie, so it shouldn't have been a big deal for me.' On Tuesday morning he found some fairways. The course had mercifully been giving a soaking since the week before. 'There's definitely been a little bit of rain since. Last Monday felt impossible. I birdied the last two holes for 81. It didn't feel like I played that bad,' he said. "I'm glad we have spotters up there because I played last Monday and you hit a ball off the fairway and you were looking for a good couple of minutes just to find it. It's very penal if you miss. "But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win.'
The 42
4 hours ago
- The 42
McIlroy unravels after strong start at US Open, Lowry struggles
RORY MCILROY AND Shane Lowry both endured a difficult start to the US Open as Oakmont Country Club proved to be as tough a test as anticipated. McIlroy was two-under through his first three holes on Thursday, but a disappointing six-over for the remainder — culminating in a double-bogey at the par-three eighth — as he signed for a round of four-over par 74. Lowry, who was runner-up the last time that Oakmont hosted the US Open in 2016, struggled to a nine-over par 79 which could have been even worse but for a hole-out from 160 yards for eagle at the third. JJ Spaun is the clubhouse leader on four-under after the morning's play in Pittsburgh, his stunning 66 only the eighth bogey-free round at Oakmont in US Open history. Advertisement Teeing off alongside Lowry and Justin Rose on the 10th, McIlroy opened par-birdie-birdie to jump to the top of the leaderboard early on. After holing a 27-foot birdie at the 11th, the world number two launched a monstrous 392-yard drive at the par-five 12th before a brilliant second shot and two putts from 60 feet for birdie and a share of the lead. McIlroy hits his LONGEST drive of the season ‼️ A MONSTER 392-yard drive sets him up for eagle 👀 — Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) June 12, 2025 McIlroy stared down Oakmont's test in a bogey-free back nine to make the turn in an impressive two-under before the course bit back, starting with a missed six-footer for par on the first. Further trouble followed at the par-five fourth where he was right off the tee and needed two shots to get out of the rough, saving himself from an even worse fate by holing a 30-footer to salvage bogey. But in the end, Rory does his best salvage job with a bogey putt from 30+ feet. — U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 12, 2025 However, his challenge stalled with a cruel final run of back-to-back bogeys at the sixth and seventh and then a double when he overshot the green with his tee-shot at the par-three eighth. Playing partner Lowry has plenty of work to do after a topsy-turvy round which included three doubles as well as the first-ever US Open eagle at Oakmont's third hole, where he managed a rueful smile as he holed out from all of 160 yards. How good is this from Shane Lowry?! 🦅 — Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) June 12, 2025 Behind leader Spaun, just four other players shot rounds under par from the morning wave: South Africa's Thriston Lawrence who is one shot back on three-under, Si-Woo Kim, who opened with a two-under par 68, and Ben Griffin and Thomas Detry, who both shot opening 69s.
Irish Examiner
4 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
JJ Spaun uses Players confidence to shoot lowest-ever US Open opening round at Oakmont
JJ Spaun knows what it takes to drag Rory McIlroy into deep waters. On opening day at Oakmont, as his Sawgrass foe was slowly pulled below the surface, the softly-spoken world No.25 was the only man finding buoyancy. It turns out McIlroy played his part. Spaun, the 34-year-old Californian with just one PGA Tour win to his name, is in the midst of a career year. On Thursday he turned in the most sparkling major round of his life, riding a wave of focused and faultless play to lead the US Open by two shots as the afternoon wave set out to chase his clubhouse lead. Spaun's bogey-free 66 matched the lowest-ever opening round for a US Open at the hallowed Pittsburgh course. It's been that kinda year. And it all began where it could have ended. Spaun held the 54-hole lead at golf's fifth major, the Players, earlier this year and was paired with McIlroy for a Sawgrass Sunday. When so many with such little experience of those kind of pressure situations would have wilted, Spaun stood tall and dragged McIlroy all the way to a Monday playoff. A runners-up cheque was consolation but the experience was all the more valuable. 'The Players was a kind of spring into the self-belief because it wasn't like I faked it,' Spaun said after coming in from his productive morning which featured four birdies and 14 pars. "You can maybe fake it at the Sony and Cognizant or whatever, but to do that at The Players, a course where I'd never done well historically, and to go head-to-head with Rory on Sunday, and then the playoff was great for my confidence. 'I didn't win, but it was great for me to kind of lean back on that experience and know that I can perform on the biggest of stages and handle it with the pressure.' Spaun did that Thursday to soar well clear of an early chasing pack featuring less than a dozen players in the red. A chip-in birdie on his first hole gave him a fast start and he added three more before the turn then parred all the way home, wobbling only briefly. 'It set the tone for how the day was going to go. You're not really expecting to chip it in. It was a nice little wake-up call at 7.10 in the morning or whatever it was,' added Spaun, whose scrambling par from the Church Pew bunker on the 3rd was perhaps most impressive. 'It definitely makes me feel good, makes me feel confident that I'm leading the tournament. But there's plenty more golf left. This course is only going to get tougher. I'm trying to feel like I have nothing to lose. That was my mantra at The Players going into Sunday with the lead.' Read More Tough first day for McIlory and Lowry as both struggled at the US Open
