Rory turns up desert heat on Donald

RORY McILROY believes the pressure is all on Luke Donald this weekend as the pair battle to end the season as the circuit’s number one.

McIlroy, who shot a six-under-par 66 yesterday, has to win the Dubai World Championship to do it. The 22-year-old, still suffering from a virus and due to see a doctor again tomorrow after receiving blood test results, also needs Donald to finish outside the top nine.

But McIlroy, who won the Hong Kong Open last Sunday with a closing 65, is using his situation to pile the pressure on Donald.

“To be honest, I’m sort of using it to my advantage in a way,” he said. “I’m not 100% and if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“You can just go about your game and try and play as well as you can.

“I definitely don’t feel invincible, but I feel like every time I tee it up I’ve got a good chance of shooting a good score.”

And it seems to be working. Donald started today in joint 26th when three successive bogeys from the 14th left him with a level-par 72.

“I felt very much in control and then I lost it,” Donald said as a race he seemed a near-certainty to win a month ago heated up. “This is two shots better than the first round last year and I still finished ninth. You’ve got to find the positives.”

After the turn is when the fireworks really started. McIlroy holed from 12 feet on 10, 25 feet on 13, 12 feet at the next, 40 feet on 16 and from 18 and 20 feet on the final two greens.

McIlroy still reckons Donald has a better short game than him, but it was Donald who came into the event saying that McIlroy had the most talent of anyone he had ever played with.

That sparked some heated debate given Tiger Woods’ record as a pro.

McIlroy, no stranger to Twitter controversies himself, was asked for his opinion on the matter.

“It’s one thing to have talent, but another to actually have the capability of turning that talent into something productive,” he said. “I think what Luke was saying was maybe golf comes as easy to me as it does Tiger – I’ll never know – but Tiger’s won 90-whatever tournaments and 14 Majors and that’s definitely more of a talent than [my] five wins.”