Rory has his eye on St Andrews, Whistling Straits
LONDON: Rory McIlroy is confident he can add two majors to his trophy haul this year after a successful 12 months in which he has proved himself to be the world’s best player.
At Wentworth this week to defend his PGA Championship title, McIlroy on Tuesday picked up the European Tour Golfer of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year awards.
The world number one, who has won four majors so far in his career, clinched his third tournament of 2015 on Sunday with a seven-shot win at the Wells Fargo Classic.
The 26-year-old, who claimed the WGC Match Play title two weeks ago, has been in superb form and now has six top-10 finishes in his last eight PGA Tour starts.
“There are three majors left and I feel two of those venues could suit me – St Andrews (The Open) and Whistling Straits (US PGA Championship),” he told Sky Sports.
“Chambers Bay at the U.S. Open is a bit of an unknown quantity. But there are two great opportunities for major titles and a lot of other opportunities for wins.”
“I’d also like to increase my lead in the world ranking,” said McIlroy, who already has a lead of almost 200 points over Jordan Speith followed by Sweden’s Henrik Stenson and Speith’s fellow Americans Bubba Watson and Jim Furyk.
“I feel like I’m in a genera-
I can win a lot more majors. I haven’t put a number on it because I don’t want to put that burden on myself. I just want to be better than everyone else.
tion with a lot of young guys that are coming up and I want to be the best of this generation,” McIlroy said.
“I want to win a lot more tournaments, I can win a lot more majors. I haven’t put a number on it because I don’t want to put that burden on myself. I just want to be better than everyone else.
“I’ve put in a lot of hard work over the past 12 months, just working that little bit harder, just those tiny little differences that separate a top-five finish from a win.”
McIlroy has a long way to go to catch Tiger Woods, who has won 14 major titles, but he has closely studied the former world number one.
“The one thing I’ve learned from Tiger, from getting to know him, is how hard he works – the ones who work the hardest do the best,” said McIlroy. “I’ll never be able to do for golf what Tiger did. He was a phenomenon, he brought so many more people into the game because of his background and how he started on tour.”
At the opposite end of the scale, former world number one Luke Donald has been in the golfing doldrums for the last three years but is hoping a return to the scene of past glories this week can kickstart a turnaround in fortunes.
The Chicago-based Englishman is without a victory in Europe or the United States since 2012 and has slumped to 60th in the rankings, a position that puts his place in the sport’s leading tournaments in jeopardy.
“You always enjoy coming back to a place where you've had a lot of successes and some of my best successes have been here. Hopefully, it will spark me,” Donald said.
Donald won the event in 2011 and 2012 and came close last year, finishing tied third behind McIlroy. – Reuters