Rory McIlroy is desperate to put an injury-plagued 2017 season behind him ahead of his competitive return to golf at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA.
The Northern Irishman has not played since shooting level par at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championships at St Andrews in October due to a rib injury, which also forced him to miss six weeks at the start of last season, and as a result he has slipped down to 11th in the Official World Golf Rankings.
McIlroy was absent for the event last year as Tommy Fleetwood claimed a stunning one-stroke victory over World Number One Dustin Johnson, but the 28 year old will return to a course where he has produced strong performances in the past.
McIlroy has finished tied for fifth or better in his seven of his nine appearances at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, including four second-placed finishes, and despite not having won since his success at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Hosted by the Rory Foundation in May 2016, the Northern Irishman believes his game is not far away from adding to his 13 European Tour titles.
I'd love to win again. I don't think there's any better feeling than winning a golf tournament - Rory McIlroy
“I'm excited to be back at a golf tournament,” the four-time Major Championship winner said. “It's been a while. The last few months have been really nice just to concentrate on a few things I needed to take care of in terms of getting myself fit and healthy to come back and sharpen up a few things in my game.
“This is the first real test of getting back and seeing how I am. I'm looking forward to just getting out there and seeing how I perform when I need to.
“I'd love to win again. I don't think there's any better feeling than winning a golf tournament. I don't feel like it's that far away.
“I've shot some really good scores over the past few weeks, and obviously it's different doing that to being out here on Thursday and really having a card in your hand. There's no reason to think that it's not that far away.
“It's a place I've done well before and obviously a golf course I know well, so it's a comfortable place to come back and make a fresh start of the year."
World Number Nine Henrik Stenson was part of Team Europe which triumphed in the EurAsia Cup last week and he hopes to use the winning momentum as a springboard in the events leading up to the Masters Tournament in April.
“I had a fun week in Kuala Lumpur with the rest of the team,” the Swede said. “It was certainly very good competitive practice in that sense to be out there, even if my game might not have been 100 per cent, I still had to focus hard and play hard.
“I'm pretty excited about my season because I play a lot of golf early. It's kind of on, off, on, for the first three months, and we'll see if that can get us ready for Augusta in the best possible way.”
