Rory McIlroy attended the Oak Hill Media Centre ahead of his defence of the 95th PGA Championship.

The official transcipt of his interview runs into 4,150 words.

There was 25 questions from the assembled media including the last two from your author whereby I asked him about the Past Champions Dinner on Tuesday night and then a tongue in cheek question on how much did he pay for his hair cut.

Rory McIlroy looking very much a 14-year old teenager after his ‘short back and sides’ hair cut. (Photo – Eoin Clarke/www.golffile.ie)

But here is best lines from the double Major winner’s conference.

• * Very proud and very honoured to be back as defending champion because it brings back the memories of what great golf I played last year at Kiawah Island
• *Oak Hill will make you have to control every single aspect of your game.  You can’t fake it around this golf course.
• *Past Champion’s dinner – Everyone enjoyed the second two courses (Irish beef tender loin and sticky toffee pudding) but not sure about the appetizer (goat’s cheese and beet root salad).
• *After watching a few videos of last year it has sort of lifted me a little bit
• I’m as confident as I have been all year this week
• *I would love to get my game back to where I can be able to challenge Tiger
• * There’s no point in slumping my shoulders and getting down on myself.  I just have to try to be resilient and carry myself as if I were playing well.
• The one thing I regret, I didn’t play enough golf at the start of the year.
• Should the media lay off me?  That’s not for me to decide.
• The club change was a valid point at the start of the year but it’s not now valid.
• Life would be pretty boring if it was easy all the time.
• The magic of Kiawah Island is not that far away.
• The hair cut was kindly free and it was getting a little hot under here (cap).