Rory McIlroy is hopeful a maiden Rolex Series win at this week's BMW PGA Championship can catapult him towards the most successful season of his stellar career.
The Northern Irishman has four Major Championships, three Race to Dubai titles and two World Golf Championships triumphs to his name but he has yet to win one of the European Tour's prestige events.
He has three worldwide victories so far in 2019 that have helped guide him to FedEx Cup glory on the US PGA Tour, but that total is two short of his winning tally from 2012.
Ranked second in the Official World Golf Ranking and with a win and a second place at Wentworth Golf Club in the past, McIlroy will be many people's favourite this week after also narrowly missing out in a play-off in Switzerland recently.
And with the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, WGC-HSBC Champions and DP World Tour Championship, Dubai to come, he is aiming to surpass that total from seven years ago and chase down World Number One Brooks Koepka.
"I've got an opportunity over the next few weeks where there's a lot of World Ranking points here," he said. "There will be big World Ranking points in Japan and China, Dubai at the end of the year.
"So my goal is to get closer, just to try to keep progressing, get a couple more wins.
"I feel like I'm playing well enough - the most I've ever won in a season is five. I'd love to at least equal that and try to better that.
"So it's just keep going, try not to let my foot off the pedal and finish the year the way I started it on a very positive note."
McIlroy's victory in Surrey in May 2014 was his first in exactly 18 months and moved him back into the world top ten, setting in sequence a run that would see him win two Majors and return to World Number One by August.
"That win was something out of the blue, everything else that was going on in my life back then," he said.
"I think if you can play good golf in those circumstances, it says a lot about your character. Then I went down and rode that wave of momentum all the way through the summer.
"I think you sometimes need these little sparks to get you going and that was definitely a spark for me to give me that little push forward and do what I did that year.
"I think all the great golf that I've played up until this point this year, that moves me in the right direction and gives me motivation to try and end this year well."
This season the BMW PGA Championship has moved from September to May and McIlroy believes the change will be good for the European Tour's flagship event.
"It's good to be back playing in Europe, especially coming to Wentworth at this time of year," he said.
"I came to the Match Play a few times as a kid and watched. It was a bit later in the year, it was October, but the leaves were changing and it was always a great atmosphere.
"I think for the tournament this new date is going to be fantastic."
