Rory: Opportunity knocks for Europe

TIGER WOODS might be the bookies’ favourite to win his fifth green jacket but Rory McIlroy believes a new generation of European stars are ready to make a mark in this year’s majors.

The 20-year old Holywood starlet will tee it up in his second Masters next week hoping his game will be back to its brilliant best after some recent back problems led to swing struggles.

He is confident he can get his game into perfect shape after a two-week rest when he joins Pádraig Harrington in this week’s Shell Houston Open at Redstone.

It’s all about getting ready for Augusta, where Woods is fancied by the bookmakers to come back to the game after a five-month hiatus and win his 15th major title.

And that’s a good thing for McIlroy, who believes the crushing media interest in the world number one’s return will make it easier for a host of Europeans to break their major ducks.

“All the attention will be on Tiger at Augusta and that’s probably good for the rest of us,” McIlroy said in Houston yesterday. “I think this is going to be one of the years where it will be our best chance to win a major. Pádraig has won three in the last couple of years but apart from that, European golf has been pretty barren as far as the major championships go. It is a great chance for us this year to try and win one. There is myself, Lee (Westwood), Poults, Casey, Kaymer, Stenson, Sergio – there are so many people who could go ahead and win one this year.”

Woods hasn’t played a competitive round since winning the Australian Masters last November, but McIlroy is not writing off the under-fire American star.

He said: “He has won 14 majors and the rest of the field combined probably hasn’t won 14 between them. Any time he plays he is going to be a favourite and even more so in a major championship because he has so much more experience going down the stretch than most other players do.

“If you look at it, Ernie Els is playing great at the minute but Phil Mickelson hasn’t played great the start of the year. Steve Stricker is playing nicely but you wouldn’t say he would be more of a favourite than Tiger.

“Pádraig is playing quite nicely too and played okay at Transitions so he will be a factor. But you can understand why Tiger is up there in the betting.”