Belek — Rory McIlroy has three chances to make up for what he called his “lost season” and is determined to win one of the three Final Series events that he plays on the European Tour.
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McIlroy’s journey of redemption starts with the Turkish Airlines Open here this week, and he is then scheduled to play the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai followed by the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
The Northern Irishman famously broke his ankle playing football with his mates a few days before the Open Championship, where he was to defend his crown. Instead, he missed the trip to St Andrews, and also had to pull out of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, where he was the previous year’s winner again.
It put a screeching halt to the momentum he was building up with two wins in three weeks in America in May – at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and Well Fargo Championship – and it has been a struggle for the four-time major champion ever since he made his comeback at the PGA Championship in August.
McIlroy’s best finish since then has been a tied fourth place at the BMW Championship, the third event on the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He has also dropped to No3 in the world rankings from No1.
But on the eve of the Turkish Airlines Open, McIlroy insists his injury problems are behind him and he is looking forward to the challenge of winning the Race to Dubai for a third time. He is still No1 in the rankings this season despite the time off, currently at E3,011,999 and E271,214 ahead of the second placed Danny Willett.
McIlroy said: “I guess I am more concerned about form than fitness at this point. My fitness is totally fine.
“Health-wise, I’m pretty much back to where I need to be. I’ve started to train the way I was before the injury again. So trying to get my game back into shape. I feel like I’ve made a few steps in the right direction.
“This week is another opportunity to see where my game is, try and get into contention and try to win.”
A victory is definitely something that will make up for dome of McIlroy’s frustrations this year.
“Obviously, I’d like to win the Race to Dubai. I’d like to win at least one of these last three events that I’m playing. That would make me feel better about the end of the year,” said McIlroy.
In 2 hours from now I will be live on #periscope from the #TurkishAirlinesOpen. Join me at https://t.co/8pDAIwACWD pic.twitter.com/9iejd7I9NM
— Rory Mcilroy (@McIlroyRory) October 28, 2015
“From when I injured my ankle, if I was to go from then to the end of the season without another win, especially with how I was playing up until that point, it would be very disappointing.
“So, I’ve got three opportunities coming up to try and get a win or two on the board and end this year on a positive. At least that would help me go into next year with a bit of momentum.
“And yeah, it would mean an awful lot to me to win the Race to Dubai for the third time. It would be a great achievement and that’s obviously what I’m trying to do the next few weeks.”
McIlroy said his biggest concern since making his comeback has been with his putting.
“I’ve been struggling with my putting more than anything else. And then I felt like I didn’t really hit the ball great at The Tour Championship, but I felt like I hit the ball better at Fry’s (two week’s ago in the first event of the new PGA Tour season).
Stroke average leaders: 69.6 @JustinRose99 69.8 @BrandenGrace 69.9 @BWiesberger 69.9 @McIlroyRory 69.9 @RKakko pic.twitter.com/sbfEghSiGQ
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 26, 2015
“I feel like I’ve given myself enough chances, and I’ve hit the ball well enough to contend in tournaments and to win, but my putting sort of held me back. So I’ve worked on that quite a lot and continuing to work on it, but I feel like that’s going in the right direction.
“I felt like every time I missed the putt, there was a question that followed it. Any time I missed a putt, I was asking myself: Did I pull it, did I misread it, did I whatever. So it’s more trying to free myself up, get out of my own way a little bit.
“And so I worked quite a bit on routine, just a bit on the mental approach of a putt and trying to free myself up and trying to simplify it a little bit. And again, it’s good on the putting green, but it’s just trying to transfer that from the putting green on to the golf course.”
McIlroy is paired for the first two rounds with his good friend Shane Lowry and Willett, who is chasing him at No2 in the Race to Dubai.
