Rory McIlroy rested, ready for whirlwind leading to Masters

Rory McIlroy, out of action for almost four months, returns this week at the Abu Dhabi Championship. It’s all part of his whirlwind plan to get ready for the Masters.

It’s been quite a while since Rory McIlroy teed it up in a professional golf event. He last played in the U.S. at the BMW Championship in September, where he finished T58 and in Europe at the Dunhill Links in October, where he finished 63rd. Since we last saw him, he’s had a chance to recover from the ailments that were plaguing him the last few seasons, and he’s made some adjustments to his bag.

New to the equipment mix are the Taylormade M3 driver and an M3 3-wood. He has a P790 UDI 2 iron, P750 3 and 4 irons, and he still carries the P730 Rors Proto irons in the 5-9 slots. He’s added a 60-degree wedge, the kind that Dustin Johnson uses.

“After that three-and-a-half months of a reset, I’m very happy to be back,” he admitted in his press conference before the Abu Dhabi Championship. “I felt like I needed it physically and mentally. I’ve been out here for ten years, and it just felt like it was a little bit of a sabbatical.”

He reflected that he’d been playing professional golf for ten seasons and needed some time away to get ready for the next ten. He also spent time on an extended vacation with his new bride.

Rory excited to do more than watch from the sidelines in 2018

Last year, McIlroy was not able to practice before tournaments, and though he wasn’t on a ball count, he was restricted as to what he could do.

"“I couldn’t really hit many balls the sort of second half of last year,” he explained. “I’d go and play and I wouldn’t hit balls after the round. I would warm-up for maybe 30 minutes before the round and that was it. That’s all I was doing.”"

While that may work once in a while, as a plan for the season, it’s no way to beat the likes of Justin Thomas or Jordan Spieth or Jon Rahm or Dustin Johnson.

"“Didn’t really practice much between tournaments because I couldn’t,” he added. “I was just trying to rest and trying to keep myself going. So that mentally gets you because every time you turn up at an event, you don’t feel prepared. You don’t feel like you’ve done enough work to be ready and then even if you do get yourself in contention, almost feel a bit guilty that you’re there because you haven’t done the work.”"

Because of his past season or two of injuries, McIlroy’s excited to be back, and is interested to see how he does in his first event. He’s put on some muscle and feels ready.

“Obviously this is the first real test of getting back and seeing how I am,” he noted. “So I’m looking forward to just getting out there and seeing how I perform when I need to.”

To get back into the literal swing of things, McIlroy proceeded first to 50-yard shots, then 75 yards, then 100, and so on until he got back to full swing shots and full speed swings.

“Then sort of back end of November, start of December, is when I started to play and practice a bit more, and it’s felt great since then,” he added.

While he wasn’t playing, he actually watched a lot of golf, which is a little unusual for a professional golfer. Usually they watch everything but golf.

”Watched Tyrrell do his thing there. Watched China, watched Turkey, watched Nedbank, watched Dubai, watched Tiger’s tournament. So yeah, I’ve watched a lot of golf, and I’ve kept an eye on what everyone’s doing,” he said.

McIlroy planning on putting in extra work in the new year

As far as 2018 goes, he’s made some changes to his scheduling and the way he approaches tournaments.

"“I’m going to try to get to golf tournaments a bit earlier again,” he explained. “I went through a few years there of, obviously I had gotten to know a lot of the golf courses I played, but I’d turn up on Tuesday afternoon, hit a few balls, play the Pro-Am on Wednesday and go.”"

At the time, he was thinking it was better to prepare at home on Monday and Tuesday.

"“I think, looking back on it, I’m going to try to get to golf tournaments a little bit earlier again, try to get in on Monday, and it just gives you an extra day to prepare on the course, get used to green speeds, rough lengths, firmness of everything, all that different stuff, because each week obviously the golf course changes quite a bit,” he added. “So that’s getting back to something I’ve done in the past.”"

He didn’t say when he made the decision to not come to tournaments until late Tuesday, just that he was going to arrive a day earlier in the future.

“The next two weeks will be a big learning curve, just to see where I’m at,” he continued. “I’ll walk away from the two events, and I’ll have things to work on and maybe think about going into that stretch in the States.”

Next: Jon Rahm looks to cement his place among golf's elite in 2018

McIlroy intends to play eight events before the Masters beginning this week. After this week in Abu Dhabi, he is slated to play at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Genesis Open, the Honda Classic, the Valspar, Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC Dell Match Play.