Thursday 25 January 2018 09:41, UK
Rory McIlroy has declared himself ‘ahead of schedule’ in his bid to get back to his competitive best, after making a bogey-free start to the Omega Dubai Desert Classic.
The four-time major champion experienced a winless 2017 and took an extended winter break to fully recover from injury, before making his return to action at last week's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
McIlroy ended the event in a share of third spot and continued his encouraging early-season form during the opening round at Emirates Golf Club on Thursday, firing seven birdies to stay within two strokes of early pacesetter David Horsey.
"I didn't expect to play as well as I did last week, and it's been nice to continue that into this week," McIlroy told Sky Sports. "I'm ahead of schedule right now, but I don't mind that.
"That's nice and I just have to reassess everything and go from there. Not being able to play to my best last year was something that I was very frustrated with.
"I'm really happy with where my body is, where my game is and this is just a progression of what I've seen over the past couple of months, which has been nice."
Beginning on the back nine alongside Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia, McIlroy failed to capitalise on the par-five 10th but birdied the next and holed a 30-footer to save par at the 12th.
Birdies at the 13th and 15th were followed by a hat-trick of gains around the turn to parachute the McIlroy up the leaderboard, before the world No 11 holed a birdie putt from off the fourth green and closed his round with a run of pars.
"I don't think you could have got better conditions out there," McIlroy added. "The greens in the morning are perfect and there wasn't much wind for probably the first 12 or 13 holes.
"You needed to take advantage of it today and thankfully I was able to do that. I knew there was so many chances out here and just tried to keep hitting fairways, hit greens and give myself chances.
"I knew if I got into a rhythm that some would fall. I feel like I left a few out there but the end of the day, 65, you're not going to complain about that."
Watch the Omega Dubai Desert Classic throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage continues on Friday from 7.30am on Sky Sports Golf.
