Rory McIlroy's Assessment Of Austin Country Club

Considering the incredibly difficult winds mixing with a Pete Dye design, I thought the players might have turned on Austin Country Club after two days of the WGC Dell Match Play. But as Ryan Lavner notes, things have been pretty formful, setting up elimination Friday for some nice matches.

But as I noted in discussing the course today with Gary Williams, it really has all the makings of a great match play course. Contrasted with the recent venues for this event, the move to this 1984 design is without question a huge upgrade for the event. After all, this is match play.

Rory McIlroy has played very well in the wind so far, which, combined with the course growing on him, is bad news heading into his match against Kevin Na Friday. McIlroy has a well known love (Kiawah)/eh (TPC Sawgrass) relationship with Dye designs.

His comments in the media center after day two:

Q. You've had a couple of times around the course now, what's your assessment of Austin Country Club?

RORY McILROY: It's good for match play (laughter).

I think you'd see a lot of guys get frustrated if this was a stroke play tournament. The green complexes -- it's much better, like seeing a tournament hole location the last couple of days compared to where they were in the practice day, I mean, I played a nine hole match with Andy Sullivan on the back nine, and there were some pins you couldn't get it within 20 feet of the hole, just because it was like a crown.

You look at this golf course and it sets up great if for guys like Zach Johnson or Matt Kuchar, the guys that have done good already this week. But it's sort of grown on me.

When I first looked at it, it was a little bit like a shorter, tighter version of Dove Mountain, which a lot of the guys didn't like too much because of how much undulation the greens had. But as you play it and you start to play it more in competition, it grows on you and you start to appreciate some of the different nuances of some of the greens.

But I didn't know that it was a Pete Dye course until someone pointed it out to me. And you can see that it is. There's some Pete Dye courses I'm a big fan of and there are some Pete Dye courses that I'm not. And I think that's what he tries to do. You're either in one camp or the other. And I think this course is very much like that.