For McIlroy, golf is a worldwide profession

Rory McIlroy is starting a new season on the PGA Tour before finishing his other season on the European Tour.

Such is the world of a golfer who travels all over it.

A recent study conducted by one of McIlroy’s sponsors revealed that over the last 12 months, he has spent 350 hours in the air, 287 nights in a hotel and was in 118 airports. And that’s just the travel. He also walked 932 miles on golf courses.

“That’s the sort of travel that you have to do to be a worldwide player,” McIlroy said Wednesday. “It’s crazy numbers. I definitely see a day where those numbers are going to drop. No way I could sustain that for the rest of my career. Whenever that day is I’m not sure, but for now, that’s the life I live.”

McIlroy is the star attraction at the Frys.com Open, which starts Thursday at Silverado to kick off a new season on the PGA Tour. And to think it has been all of 17 days since Jordan Spieth ended the previous season as the FedEx Cup champion.

McIlroy is at Silverado because he was among eight players who took part in an exhibition in Turkey three years ago that was held the same week as this PGA Tour event.

Justin Rose, Charl Schwartzel and Webb Simpson also are at Silverado, and Tiger Woods was supposed to join them until he recently had a second back surgery. The other three — Lee Westwood, Matt Kuchar and Hunter Mahan — played last year. Mahan is the only one who returned.

It only adds to McIlroy’s busy end of the year no matter the tour or the season.

After a week off, he is headed to Turkey, Shanghai and Dubai to finish off the Race to Dubai that he currently leads on the European Tour.

“I feel like I’m in the middle of a nice little run to the end of the year,” McIlroy said.

In some respects, McIlroy started another “new” season in August.

He injured his ankle playing football the first weekend in July and wound up missing two months, including his British Open title defence at St. Andrew, before returning at the PGA Championship. He has tried to pace himself since then to make sure the ankle is fully healed.

This is the third straight year of the tour’s wraparound season — October to September — and the Frys.com Open has managed to attract a stronger field each year. It helps having McIlroy and Rose at Silverado, though the field includes players who were not part of the Turkey deal. Hideki Matsuyama, Chris Kirk and Steven Bowditch came straight over from the Presidents Cup.