U.S. Open 2013: Rory McIlroy essentially concedes

Rory McIlroy, who shot a plus-5 75 in the third round to finish plus-8 through 54 holes at the Open, met the media following his disappointing round on Saturday at Merion. Here is the transcript:

McIlroy: If you're not on your game a hundred percent, you get on the wrong side of the greens and it's just freighting because I didn't feel like I played too badly. I missed a few shots here and there, and I was trying on every shot out there and I was trying to get myself back into it, but it's tough. If you're just not a hundred percent on top of your game, it's going to expose some of your flaws or weaknesses.

Great birdie to start, but then a wayward drive on 2. Does that kind of zap the confidence a little bit?

I guess I was missing my woods right and my irons left. So it was a bit of a weird one today. But I made a good bogey. I made a good bogey on the second and that sort of kept the momentum going.

You get off to a good start and you don't want to make seven. And to make birdie with the second ball was to limit the damage done and then I just went into a bad stretch there. I bogeyed 3 and 5 and 6, which are tough holes.

And then getting the birdie at 7, I thought that maybe I would have a few chances coming up and I just wasn't able to take advantage of those.

How do you reassess your goals tomorrow? Are you too far back?

Yeah, I think so. It would take something unbelievable and the scores aren't that low out there, so I think I'm 27th at the minute. I guess, if I play well, try and get in the top 10, that would be realistic.

 There's so many good shots in your locker right now. Is it just a bit of fluency and confidence missing or is it some little key that you just can't click on to?

I think it's confidence and fluidity. I don't have any other way to explain it. I've been working on the swing quite hard over the last few months, and it looks really good on camera. I just get on the course and I hit a couple of bad shots and it sort of I guess that it sort of makes you lose confidence a little bit during the round.

But I don't know, it's just, yeah, it's just a bit of a struggle and it seems like if I've had a few too many tournaments this year where I've struggled in one round or a couple of rounds and not been able to put it all together.

You have a great game in there somewhere. Is there somewhere this summer that it could click like it did last year? Do you feel it's that close?

I really do. I don't feel like it's too far away at all. Its just a matter of believing and staying patient and working hard and knowing that you work on the right thing, you're going to turn it around.

Could it happen tomorrow? A low round might not get you a victory.

I'm 8 over par for the Tournament. Yeah, I reckon I could get back to 3 or 4 over par for the Tournament and finish this U.S. Open on a positive note and get something out of it at least.