London (AFP) – Rory McIlroy has revealed advice from tennis legend Roger Federer is providing the inspiration for his battle to avoid becoming bored of golf. McIlroy became the newest member of golf’s career Grand Slam club after his victory in the Masters earlier this year. The Northern Ireland star’s fulfilment of his bid to win each of golf’s major prizes has left him pondering what can motivate the rest of his career.
After speaking to 20-time Grand Slam winner Federer towards the end of his career, McIlroy believes the answer is to play only the tournaments that he has a special feeling for, regardless of their size and status. With that in mind, the 36-year-old will play in India for the first time this year and also plans to feature in Australia.
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The world number two was criticised last month for skipping the first FedEx Cup event on the PGA Tour. But McIlroy wanted to take a break before a busy September that began with him winning last week’s Irish Open and has now taken him to Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship before the Ryder Cup in New York.
“I want to go and play in different places in the world and experience things that I haven’t experienced before, to be able to do things for the first time 18 years into a career,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “I had a chat with Roger Federer, I don’t know, a few years ago sort of at the end of his career and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career, some of the smaller events, just because a lot of people had never seen him play tennis before.
“I think as time goes on and I get to this stage of my career, I get excited about doing that sort of thing. I don’t want to name a tournament but you’re going back to the same place, the same thing 15, 20 years in a row, it can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious. I want to play in the locations that I love to go to, and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That’s it.”
McIlroy is not thinking about the end of his competitive career, but the five-time major winner acknowledges his priorities have shifted and he is no longer beholden to the weekly trudge around the golf circuit. “I don’t want to be grinding out here at 50 years of age. I’ll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time but whenever I’m done, I’m done, whenever that is,” he said. “That’s certainly not right now, but I’m certainly closer to that point now than I was in 2007 when I turned pro. I’ll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership on certain tours but I’m going to play where I want to play.”
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