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McIlroy cancelled his pre-tournament press
conference on Tuesday, a week after he addressed the fallout
from the announcement of a merger between the PGA Tour and the
Saudi-backed LIV Golf at the Canadian Open.
The 34-year-old, missed the cut at the 2023 Masters and finished
seventh at the PGA Championship, ended in a share of ninth in
Toronto for his third consecutive top-10 finish on the PGA Tour.
"I'm building toward something," McIlroy said. "I'm certainly
feeling a lot better coming into this major championship than I
was going to Oak Hill.
"I sort of pieced it together around Oak Hill and did okay, but
the last two performances - minus the two Sundays - have been
really big steps of progress and it's just about trying to build
on that."
McIlroy won the U.S. Open in 2011 at Congressional Country Club,
storming to victory while setting the mark for lowest 72-hole
score in the tournament's history at 16-under-par 268.
The Northern Irishman - who will tee off with LIV's Brooks
Koepka and former masters champion Hideki Matsuyama in the first
round on Thursday - has posted four consecutive top-10 finishes
at the U.S. Open.
"I've had my ups and downs in this tournament but I've started
to figure out how to handle U.S. Open conditions and tests,"
McIlroy said.
"I think there's certainly a lot more patience in my game than
there used to be."
(Reporting by Hritika Sharma in Hyderabad; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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