McIlroy on a mission in China

EUROPEAN TOUR NEWS ROUND-UP:TIME, AS experience tells us, is a great healer. In Rory McIlroy's case, it's a commodity that is in short supply as he has only a matter of days to get over the disappointment of losing out to Lee Westwood in the race to be Europe's number one for the season before teaming-up with fellow-Ulsterman Graeme McDowell in the World Cup at Mission Hills in China.

Yet, in McIlroy’s case, it is probably a perfect remedy. As McDowell put it, “certain players would have difficulty in picking themselves up but Rory is not that type of guy. He has unbelievable enthusiasm for the game and, given that he is so young, he just relishes every opportunity. He is a very mature man for a 20-year-old.”

Indeed, if McIlroy required any further solace in being overhauled by Westwood at the last hurdle of the year-long Race to Dubai, it came yesterday with the news that he had risen to number 10 in the official world rankings. That was a target he set himself at the start of this year, and in achieving that objective he has become the second youngest player – after Sergio Garcia – to accomplish such a feat.

Now, though, McIlroy – indicating another sign of his maturity – has refocused his mind and insisted he will make a strong challenge for the World Cup (last won by Ireland in 1997 when Pádraig Harrington was partnered by Paul McGinley) when he teams-up with McDowell. “It would be great to win with GMac,” said McIlroy, adding: “We had a great time at the Vivendi Trophy and it would be great to win the World Cup and bring it back home. Next week, I’ll be still disappointed (about losing out to Westwood), because I had a great chance. In the off-season, I’ll look back.”

McIlroy will make his debut appearance in the World Cup – where Ireland traditionally play as an all-island entity, although he has intimated that he will play for a UK team in the Olympics when golf is introduced in 2016 in Brazil – with McDowell, and he will be hoping that his team-mate’s knowledge of playing there last year with McGinley will prove beneficial.

There is no doubt in McDowell’s mind that the course will suit his young companion. “It is a driver’s golf course and Rory is probably one of the best drivers of the golf ball in the world. Length is a key on a few of the par fives and, while I feel I am driving it good, it is really all about gelling as a team and we can prove we can do that. There’s a few good teams playing and, regardless of what’s happened to Rory in Dubai, we will have a great week.”

While McDowell believes they have a great chance to win the World Cup – “There is something about team golf I’ve always enjoyed” – he has fallen out of the world’s top-50 (he has dropped one place to 51st but won’t be playing any more tournaments with world ranking points before he returns to action in Abu Dhabi next January) and the repercussion of that is that he won’t earn an invitation to Augusta off the end-of-season world rankings. Instead, he will focus on a quick start to next year in his bid to return to the top-50.

McDowell has struggled to understand just where he has fallen down this season. “I worked very hard but for no love back. But, then, this is the way this game sometimes is. Sometimes you don’t work hard and it comes easy. Other times, it doesn’t feel quite as easy. I made a lot of progress this year in the majors. You have to be working on the right things and I’ve been having that conversation the last few weeks with my back-up team. What it is I am trying to work on, and what I need to do for next season, and what have we done wrong this year, and what mistakes we made and let’s correct them, and let’s go for next year.”

One area that McDowell is aware needs attention is his distance off the tee, where he finished 80th in the Genworth Financial statistics averaging 287 yards (compared to leading driver Alvaro Quiros’s 314 yards).

“Yeah, it’s a bit of an issue for me,” conceded McDowell. “I could do with picking up not 30 yards but 15 yards would help me a huge amount. I’m getting in the best shape I have probably ever been in since I turned pro but I still have a lot of work to do. I’m working with Dale Richardson and I want to find out where I am lacking in strength.”

Meanwhile, Shane Lowry’s third place finish behind Edoardo Molinari in the Phoenix tournament in Japan on Sunday has moved the Irish Open champion up to 135th in the latest world rankings, a rise of 46 places.