Rory McIlroy eyes big game in South Africa

He’s one of golf’s big three but while he has spent a few days watching Africa’s big five and has his sights set on returning to world number one this month, Rory McIlroy’s early-season sojourn to South Africa is all about one thing — the first major of the year.

After rescuing what was looking like a decidedly average 2016 by stealing the FedEx Cup from under Dustin Johnson’s nose with two wins in the playoffs, the 27-year old admitted trying to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods by completing the career grand slam with a Masters victory is his big goal for the first few months.

That said, the defending Race to Dubai champion admits having come up short in his two previous attempts to complete his major “set”, he knows the longer the wait goes on, the tougher it will become.

“The more years without me winning it, I realise it’s going to become tougher but there is so much more to be achieved, whether it’s in the majors or following up a FedEx Cup success with another one or trying to win the Race to Dubai again,” he explained on the eve of the BMW SA Open hosted by City of Ekurhuleni.

Nobody knows this better than tournament host Ernie Els, whose participation in the 2015 Irish Open at Royal County Down forced McIlroy to repay that favour at Glendower Golf Club in the Johannesburg suburbs this week.

In truth, it’s the perfect soft opening to 2017 for McIlroy, who has radically overhauled his golf bag after some exhaustive testing in the Middle East before Christmas.

A free agent now that Nike is out of the club business, he’s changed almost everything and gone for the Callaway Epic Sub Zero driver, TaylorMade M2 fairway woods, the Custom Callaway Apex MB irons, Titleist Vokey SM6 wedges, an Odyssey putter and, crucially, the 2017 Titleist Pro V1x golf ball.

“I’ve decided what to start the year with which is a bit of Callaway stuff and a bit of Titleist stuff although I’m still trying some TaylorMade woods out,” McIlroy said.

“But I think the clubs thing could be an ever-changing process in 2017. I’m really happy with the new golf ball. It’s basically a matter of fitting everything around the golf ball.

“The golfer swinging the club is more important than the club itself,” he added.

While he had teething trouble when he first moved to Nike, McIlroy has far more control over his bag now and he sounded confident about his chance of regaining the world number one spot from Jason Day before the end of January.

“If I play well this week, I have a chance going to Abu Dhabi to regain the number one spot,” said McIlroy, who plans to marry fiancée Erica Stoll this year.

As for his love story with Augusta National, that’s been tempestuous since his final round collapse in 2011.

If, like Els, he fails to win the Masters, he may look back on that final round 80 as one of the worst days of his life. Instead, he prefers to look at it as the day he learned enough to win four times in his next 15 major starts.

“If 2011 hadn’t happened, would I be standing here having won a US Open, two PGAs and an Open Championship? You never know.”

At Augusta last year, he started slowly and ended up 10th behind Danny Willett before sandwiching a distant share of fifth behind Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson in The Open at Troon between a pair of missed cuts in the US Open and the US PGA.

This year, he’s decided he needs to ease up on himself in the big ones and be less afraid of losing them on day one.

“I need to start majors better and maybe that will start by putting a little less pressure on myself and going out and free-wheeling a bit more,” he said. In the last year or so in the opening rounds of majors, I was a little bit tight and tentative instead of going out and playing my game.”

As well as his new hardware, so much depends on his putting and his new relationship with putting expert Phil Kenyon, a disciple of the late Harold Swash, which was key to turning 2016 into a success.

McIlroy and world No 45 Andy Sulivan are the only two members of the world’s top 50 in action this week, although the field features major winners in Els and Retief Goosen and former Ryder Cup captains Nick Faldo and Darren Clarke. With South Africans Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace, and Charl Schwartzel all controversial absentees, McIlroy is drawn with George Coetzee and rising local Brandon Stone, who was an impressive winner of the Alfred Dunhill Championship last year.

“Rory is by far the class player in the field in terms of world rankings,” Els said. “He’s going to be the guy everybody will be looking up at, or to beat, or to see how he’s doing.”