Rory McIlroy Quotations

I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.

I wish to clarify that I have absolutely not made a decision regarding my participation in the next Olympics. On a personal level, playing in the Olympics would be a huge honour. However, the Games in Rio are still four years away and I certainly won't be making any decisions with regards to participating any time soon.

The great thing about my two lives is I love them both. I'm very ambitious and nothing gets in the way of me practising and concentrating on winning golf tournaments. But then I come home and get back to normality.

The next time I cry about golf it will only be with joy. It's not worth crying over golf for any other reason. After all, it's only a game.

As long as I keep enjoying my golf, then hopefully I'll be able to play well.

Going to the gym is great for your body, but it's also great for your mind.

I receive huge support from Irish and British sports fans alike and it is greatly appreciated. Likewise I feel I have a great affinity with the American sports fans. I play most of my golf in the U.S. nowadays and I am incredibly proud to have won the U.S. Open and U.S. PGA Championship in the last two years.

Home will always be Northern Ireland but my schedule means for the next few years I won't be there as much. I can't do the same things that I did a year ago. That is I'm something conscious of, but I'm not sad about it. It's fine.

I wanted to make a point of basing myself at home, being close to my family. I'll never be able to repay Mum and Dad for what they did, but at least they know they'll never have to work another day. I'll do whatever it takes to look after them.

Of course, money matters to everyone even if some don't want to admit it. If I won the Race to Dubai, I look at that prize money and think it could pay off my new house or the range I'm building. I am privileged to play golf for a living - look around St Andrews, that's my office.

My mom and dad worked very hard to give me the best chance in - not just in golf but in life. You know, I was an only child, you know, my dad worked three jobs at one stage. My mom worked night shifts in a factory.

How can I intimidate Tiger Woods? I mean, the guy's got 75 or whatever PGA Tour wins, 14 majors. He's been the biggest thing ever in our sport. How could some little 23-year-old from Northern Ireland with a few wins come up and intimidate him.

To be a top-class athlete, you have to train hard, you have to eat right, you have to get enough rest. I feel the way golf is going nowadays, you have to treat yourself as an athlete.

You know I need that cockiness, the self-belief, arrogance, swagger, whatever you want to call it, I need that on the golf course to bring the best out of myself. So you know once I leave the golf course, you know that all gets left there.

I want to try to become the best golfer in the world.

I mean I don't want to feel inferior to any other golfer in the world. You know if you do that, then you know you're giving them an advantage, you know, right off the - you know, right from the start.

If I'm playing in the morning, I'll get some carbs early: porridge with chopped banana. If I'm playing in the afternoon, I'll start with less carbs and have some eggs and fruit for breakfast, then a light lunch about 90 minutes before I play, so I don't feel sluggish or full.

I always got very excited about the Masters as a kid. I could hardly wait until the Wednesday when you'd get the BBC's preview. And I'd then be glued to the screen until Sunday night.

It's incredible, ridiculous really, isn't it? You realise you can make more money on the golf tour in one week than some people make in a lifetime.

I realise that every time my face is on TV or I'm playing in a tournament, that I am a role model for a lot of people and a lot of kids do look up to me. I try to do my best in that regard and put myself across as honestly and as modestly as possible, as well.

The Olympics will be great for the growth of golf on a global scale, but my focus right now is on being the best player I can be, trying to win Major Championships and contributing to what will hopefully be a victorious European side at the forthcoming Ryder Cup Matches against the USA.

It is never easy to win but it is a lot easier to win when you play well. The key is winning golf tournaments when you are not playing so well. Managing your game is something that I feel that I am still learning to do.

I used to not really like going to the gym when I was playing tournaments because I'd be sore and stiff. But the more you keep doing it, the less soreness you have. And you actually start to enjoy it.

I've had support from all sides, from people who call themselves Irish, from Northern Irish, to the whole of the UK, to people in America, and it would be terrible for me to segregate myself from one of those groups that support me so much.

If somebody asks me whether I'd rather sink the winning putt in the Ryder Cup or win a major, it's the major every day. World championship or Ryder Cup? Win a world championship. At the end of the day you're going to be remembered for what you achieve in an individual sport.

As an international sportsman, I am very lucky to be supported by people all over the world, many of who treat me as one of their own, no matter what their nationality, or indeed mine. This is the way sport should be.

Since turning professional at 18, I have travelled the world playing the game that I love and consider myself a global player. As the World No.1 right now, I wish to be a positive role model and a sportsperson that people respect, and enjoy watching.

On the course, I sometimes eat a little sandwich or a slow-release energy bar - one on the front nine and one on the back nine. You're out there five hours, so you have to keep eating. You're going to burn at least 1,000 calories. I'll try to take in about 400-600 calories during a round and drink water.

On that Sunday of the Masters I remember turning on ESPN to find people talking about me. I switched over to the Golf Channel and people were talking about me. It was hard to escape.

Two years ago, of course, I was just a rookie and listened to everybody. In a way I am still a rookie. I'm only 23 and I'll be surrounded by great players who have played in a lot more Ryder Cups than myself. But the rankings say I am the best player at the moment and so that brings a responsibility.

There's a certain - there's a different pressure with playing in a Ryder Cup. You know, you're not just playing for yourself. You're playing for your teammates. You're playing for your country.

This is the great thing about Northern Ireland. I walk down the street and people stop me and say things like, 'I know you. You're that wee golfer, aren't you?' I say, 'Yeah, that's me.' They say, 'Keep it up, wee man.' It's very funny and that's why I want to stay here as long as possible.

I feel like I came through this year stronger and wiser, and I can go into 2015 in a much better place.

The Open is the one that we all want and strive for and to be able to hold this Claret Jug is an incredible feeling. To be three legs towards the career grand slam at the age of 25 is a pretty good achievement. It's not going to sink in for a while.

It's a great feeling to know that I've played the best golf throughout the season of any of the guys for the second time in three years, it's really nice.

I really enjoy playing 'Tiger Woods' on the Wii, and you can set the levels to easy, medium, or hard, so I think it's definitely a good way for kids to learn the motion of a golf swing if they want to get into the sport. It makes it more fun for them as well.

I have always said I will try to answer questions honestly. I don't want to change that about myself. I think people appreciate that about me.

I've always said the players don't build up rivalries themselves, people from the outside build up the rivalries. I just want to play good golf. I want to try and keep winning golf tournaments.

My parent are very proud, but Dad ripped into me for throwing a club on the 11th. He's happy with the way I played, but he always has to have something to moan about!

The fact is, I've always felt more British than Irish. Maybe it was the way I was brought up, I don't know, but I have always felt more of a connection with the U.K. than with Ireland.

I’m three legs toward completing the career Grand Slam at 25. So, I’m feeling pretty good right now.

My game wasn't where it should have been at all at the start of the year. I got into a couple of bad habits on my swing, and it just took me a little bit of time to get out of them.

I was detained a couple of times but that was for not handing in homework because I was playing golf or not present because I was playing golf. There was a theme evolving.

In all honesty, I never actually did anything wrong (in my eyes, at least) at school or misbehaved in any big way. If it was anything, it was probably just a lot of clowning around.

Sport was an obvious favourite of mine, and not only golf. I was, and still am, a big rugby fan.

Because I lived so close to the school and walked there every day, I used to enjoy the school bus trips.

I was very excited when I first started to travel so much. In fact, I was amazed that people were paying me to travel to play the game I loved.

It may come as a surprise but I also really started to get into history while I was at school. I found the projects about World War Two fascinating - perhaps when I get the time again, I could pick up where I left off.

I'm sure there was an educational angle to the trips (I think one was to the Ulster Museum) but it was the fun and banter I had with my friends I remember the most.

The flight I'm most excited about is the one that takes me back to Northern Ireland to visit family and friends.

I'm afraid there are no replays or second chances in amateur or professional golf, and that's the way it should be.

I started to really believe in myself, and my abilities, when I won the World Under-10 championship in Doral, Florida. I was nine and saw for the first time that I was amongst the best players in the world for my age. This was a massive confidence-builder for me.

My dad's a scratch golfer and I've got the knack of seeing something and then replicating it. I saw my dad swing a club and I worked out how to do the same thing. My backswing and follow-through have been basically the same since I was two.

I'm happy with the success I've had, and I feel like there's been a lot that I've learned this year, and that's a great thing going into the future.

Leaving golf aside for the moment, I'd choose Roger Federer as a sporting role model, Muhammad Ali for a sporting and non-sporting role model and Nelson Mandela as a true and lasting inspiration.

I believe that anybody with Mandela's capacity to endure hardship and then forgive is a born leader and example to us all.

You get thrown off balance out there. And I never recovered. Well, I haven't recovered yet.

It's been 18 months since I won on The European Tour and to win the flagship event, I could not have asked for any more.

Fitness plays such an important role in my life, and an integral part of my golf structure, that I think I might be quite good at teaching others the benefits of sport and fitness.

Everything is firing on all cylinders for me,

In a serious sense, wanting to change something from the past doesn't work for me - change something you don't enjoy now rather than regretting it later.

I expect big things from myself but as long as I can keep the commitment and dedication and put the hard work in, I don't see why there's any reason not to handle it OK.

I was more worried about what other people would think rather than, you know, me. But you have got to do what is right for yourself and what you feel comfortable with.

I've come across enough successful people now to know that the best in whatever walk of life, they're the ones who just work the hardest. I realized that if I want to be the best and fulfill my potential, I'm going to have to do the same thing. And for those who are lucky enough to be born with a gift and then choose to work the hardest-I mean, that's the combination.

I think there came a time - probably when I was about 13 - when I started to struggle with an increasing volume of schoolwork and the demands from my golfing schedule and aspirations. I'm not sure if the decision to leave school was very clear in my mind then but I did know that in the juggling between the two, my energies were most definitely in the golfing direction.

I don't really remember, but from about the age of five I told anyone who would listen that I was going to be the best golfer in the world.

With success comes expectation and I know the expectation on me is going to be pretty high.

I kept telling myself this word, process. Focus on my process, don't care about the result.