Defending champion Rory McIlroy can achieve a career milestone and set himself up perfectly for a much more important one in the WGC-Dell Match Play this week.
McIlroy has never successfully defended a title in his professional career and was famously prevented from even attempting to do so in last year’s Open and WGC-Bridgestone Invitational after suffering a serious ankle injury while playing football.
The world No 3 has made no secret of the fact that he wants a win under his belt before attempting to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in completing the career grand slam at the Masters.
And the 26-year-old feels his excellent match play record gives him a great chance of following the likes of Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Charl Schwartzel into the winner’s circle in 2016 in his final competitive outing before heading to Augusta in a fortnight’s time.
“It is important,” said McIlroy, who has been drawn to face Kevin Na, Smylie Kaufman and Thorbjorn Olesen in the group stages at Austin Country Club.
“I’ve been saying all along since the start of the year I’d love to win before Augusta and this is my last chance to do that. And seeing the guys that have won, with Bubba in LA, Adam in those two starts in Florida, Charl in Tampa and Jason last week, everyone is running into good form.
“They are all good champions, a few of them are Masters champions. Everyone is playing well and that’s really what you want to do. You want your game rounding into form and playing to the best of your abilities this time of year.
“I feel like I’m close. I’m probably not quite where they are and I haven’t had the confidence of getting a win this year, but I feel like it’s close. And this would obviously be a great week to get that win or at least get close to that win.”
McIlroy completed a disappointing week in style with a closing 65 in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday and is relishing a rare match play event following his hard-fought success in San Francisco last year.
The four-time major winner was two down after 16 holes in his final group match with Billy Horschel before winning on the second extra hole, while he needed 22 holes to get the better of Paul Casey in their quarter-final.
McIlroy, who will face Olesen today, is seeded to meet Bay Hill winner Day in the semi-finals and cannot face world No 1 and Texas native Spieth until the final.
Scot Russell Knox plays Sweden’s David Lingmerth today and has also been paired with Chris Kirk and Branden Grace.