McIlroy sets sights on being Europe's best

Irishman honed his swing at he tries to wrap up a sixth Race to Dubai title

Rory McIlroy will put swing tweaks to test on Middle East finales (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Rory McIlroy spent three weeks “locked in a swing studio” refining his swing since he last played in the Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews.

He’ll put his tinkered form into play this week at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship as he takes aims at building his legacy as Europe’s all-time greatest golfer.

Ranked No. 3 in the world and once again sitting on top of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings, McIlroy could close out his sixth career Harry Vardon trophy for leading the Euro circuit’s order of merit. That would tie him with Spain’s Seve Ballesteros and push him two behind Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie’s record of eight.

McIlroy admitted that catching Monty’s merit mark is on his list of goals along with trying to overtake England’s Nick Faldo European standard of six career major victories. Even as he consistently ticks off Race to Dubai titles, McIlroy has been stuck on four major victories for a decade dating back to his Open and PGA wins back-to-back in 2014.

“I would like to go down as the most successful European of all time,” McIlroy said Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, where he can clinch another Race to Dubai title before even reaching next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. “Obviously Race to Dubai wins would count to that but also major championships and hopefully I’ve got a few more Ryder Cups ahead of me as well. So, that’s something that I would like to ... I think is a goal that’s quite attainable over the next 10 years.

“I’m very proud to be from Europe and have sort of, you know, played on this tour and played on this tour consistently. I just think of the greats of European golf that I grew up watching, whether it was Faldo or Woosie or Langer or just sort of the really heyday of the European Tour in the ’90s, I guess.

“I remember when I got my first money clip just when I signed up to be a member and that was a really proud moment for me. That’s something that I’ve always been proud of and something I want to continue to do.”

During the month off between starts, McIlroy did extensive work on trying to get his swing exactly where he wants it to be for the end-of-the-year push as well as heading into 2025.

“I locked myself indoors in like a swing studio for three weeks and just hit balls into a blank screen or net and just focused on my swing and focused on the movement of my swing and focused on movement of my body patterns, I guess,” he said. “I had a live feed on a TV in front of me of where the club was, and just sort of trying to get the reps in of making the motion that I want to make.

“I’ve done some work on my swing that I felt like I needed to do; still probably a ways to go. But it will be nice to test it out in competition and see how it holds up. It’s been a long year. I think this is my 26th event of the season. Next week will be 27. So it was nice to have this little break coming into these events to I guess reinvigorate myself a little bit.”

McIlroy started 2024 with a win in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic and later added PGA Tour wins at the Zurich Classic (partnering with Shane Lowry) and the Wells Fargo Championship. Despite painful runner-ups at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, Irish Open at Royal County Down and BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, he has a sizeable lead over his nearest challengers in the Race to Dubai – McIlroy is on 4,532 points ahead of South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence (2,959) and Denmark’s Rasmus Højgaard (2,612).

“I know Rory is a couple of points ahead but it’s not going to stop me to try and catch him. I know I’m good enough to win both events going into the final,” said Lawrence.

McIlroy can salt it away with even a runner-up finish in Abu Dhabi, which he’s done twice before.

“It’s nice to come here with motivation of trying to achieve something and give ... put all my efforts into the next two weeks, and then I can have a nice little break over the holiday period,” he said. “If I go out and win this week, obviously you know, it makes it a bit boring next week, but I won’t find it boring. It will be lovely. All I can focus on is the task at hand and trying to play as well as I can.”