Rory admits bad weather excuses last year were frustration

[TN94z]

Going into the 2011 Open, Rory McIlroy was expected to shine even amongst the bad weather.  When mother nature got the better of him, he blamed the poor play on the conditions instead of not playing well.  In 2011, Rory stated:

Quote:

“I’m not a fan of golf tournaments that the outcome is predicted so much by the weather,” he said then. “It’s not my sort of golf. ... These conditions, I just don't enjoy playing in really. That's the bottom line. I'd rather play when it's 80 degrees and sunny and not much wind.”

Now I'm sure not many would necessarily disagree with this statement, but not many are doing this for a living.  Many pros embrace the challenge of beating the field or shooting a good score in tough conditions.  After making these statements, it seems that McIlroy has looked back on them and admitted that these were purely out of frustration.  This week, Rory commented on the bad weather excuse:

Quote:

Those comments were just pure frustration. I mean, having really high expectations going into it, coming off a major win, really wanting to play well and not doing that. And blaming the weather, blaming the draw, blaming my luck, basically. That was just frustration.

“Looking back at it a year later, I just didn’t play well enough to get into contention and didn’t handle the conditions as best as I could have.

Rory now says he feels like he is swinging better than he has all year.  After playing well in the Irish Open at Portrush in bad weather, he is learning to deal with the weather and try to shoot the best score he can no matter what conditions are handed to him.

Quote:

That’s something I’m trying to do more of and felt like I did that,” he said. “To some degree at Portrush, I felt like I played well in bad conditions. And if it’s like again this week, you’re just going to have to knuckle down and focus and keep fighting and stay tough and try to shoot a score in bad conditions

Maybe this year he will be a little better prepared considering he doesn't have all of the media buzz around him as he did last year.  That's got to just add to the pressure of delivering the results that everyone expects.  We will find out this week if Rory can hold up in tough conditions.

What do you guys think?  Is the weather a valid excuse to blame a bad performance?  Scores are one thing because you can only shoot so well in those conditions. But your performance is totally different