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Published 12:22 10 Aug 2020 BST
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"I certainly wouldn't say... ," McIlroy began before collecting his thoughts.
"It's different, right; it's a very different mentality to bring to golf [by Koepka] that I don't think a lot of golfers have.
"Yeah, it's... I was watching the golf last night and heard the interview and was just sort of taken aback a little bit by sort of what he said and whether he was trying to play mind games or not. If he's trying to play mind games, he's trying to do it to the wrong person. I don't think DJ really gives much of a concern that.
"But just different. I certainly try to respect everyone out here. Everyone is a great player. If you've won a major championship, you're a hell of a player. Doesn't mean you've only won one; you've won one, and you've had to do a lot of good things to do that.
"Yeah, I mean, sort of hard to knock a guy that's got 21 wins on the PGA Tour, which is three times what Brooks has."
McIlroy riding hard to the defence of Johnson. The 31-year-old perhaps remains conscious of the time, late last year, when Koepka - who was then World No.1 - took a swipe at McIlroy.
Koepka had been asked about a potential rivalry with the Northern Irishman over the next few years when he responded:
"I’ve been out here for, what, five years. Rory hasn’t won a major since I’ve been on the PGA Tour. So I just don’t view it as a rivalry... I’ve got open road in front of me I’m not looking in the rearview mirror, so I don’t see it as a rivalry. You know if the fans do [call it a rivalry], then that’s on them and it could be fun."
The tournaments will come thick and fast now, and until September, as we get FedEx playoffs, the money-spinning final event of that competition and two more Majors, the US Open and Masters, in September and November.
Golf, and its' soap opera storylines, is doing its best to provide a distraction in these trying times.Football

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