RORY MCILROY IS hoping that his return to tournament play in Dubai this week can inspire him to a huge improvement on the last 12 months.

The 24-year-old former world number one from Northern Ireland won his first tournament as a professional at the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, and he has become an ambassador for golf in the bustling emirate over the last few years.

But last year he opted instead to open his season at nearby Abu Dhabi and then skipped Dubai, a decision which had drastic consequences as he missed the cut to set the tone for a deflating season marred by problems adapting to his new golf clubs and business hassles.

This year, McIlroy made a point of returning to Dubai, two weeks after he opened his 2014 campaign in Abu Dhabi, where he missed out on the title only because of a two stroke penalty imposed for a rules violation.

“The Dubai Desert Classic has always been a tournament that I’ve liked to come and play,” he said.

“I played twice as an amateur here in ’06 and ’97, so the tournament has been very good to me giving me those invites and it was fitting in a way that I won my first tournament here as a pro in ’09.

“I felt like working on the range, especially with the new clubs, was going to be better for me than actually playing tournaments and it was probably the other way around.

“It’s nice to come back. I sort of missed it last year. I think I’ve alluded to that a few times.”

McIlroy said he reached his nadir last year around British Open time at Muirfield in July when he missed the cut and moaned that he felt “brain dead” out on the course.

But after taking four weeks off after the FedEx Cup playoffs to work with his lifelong coach Michael Bannon, he said he “found a couple of little keys” and took those with him into what was a reasonably successful Asian section of the year.

He then won the Australian Open — his first title of the year — in Sydney at the start of December and so nearly made it back-to-back wins two weeks ago in Abu Dhabi as the momentum gathered.

If there was one thing he had learned from his slump in 2013, he said, it was not to panic.

“You’ve got to remind yourself of what got you here in the first place. You might start looking, oh maybe I should try this or maybe I should go and talk to this guy or that guy.

“That’s not the way to approach it at all. You just need to work your way out of it and sometimes it takes longer than at other times.”

As at Abu Dhabi last year, McIlroy will play the first two rounds of the Desert Classic on Thursday and Friday in the company of the man who took over from him as world number one, Tiger Woods.

The two biggest names in golf have played together in tournaments several times but never down the home stretch in a major and they have yet to produce fireworks when in the same grouping.

“It would be great if it happened. A lot of things have to fall into place for us to play well at the same week and the same venue,” said McIlroy.

“But yeah, the ultimate test of course would be going down the stretch with arguably the best player the game has ever seen.”

- © AFP, 2014

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