DP World Tour Championship: McIlroy in confident mood as he bids for hat-trick of tournament wins
Rory McIlroy was back in action today (Thursday) for the first time in over a month.
The Holywood superstar is taking part in the European Tour season finale - the lucrative DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
McIlroy has won the tournament twice before - and comes into this one on the back of winning the CJ Cup - his 20th PGA tour title.
The European Tour will be known as the DP World Tour from the start of the 2022 season next week and boasts total prize money of more than $200m (£147m) for the first time.
The lucrative Rolex Series expands from four tournaments to five and the DP World Tour Championship will have a prize fund of $10m (£7.35m), the first regular European Tour event with an eight-figure purse.
But with similar figures commonplace across the Atlantic, Florida-based McIlroy will continue to focus on the PGA Tour, where he overcame struggling with his game to win twice in what he described as a season of "exploration and learning''.
"I live in America. That's where I'm going to play the majority of my golf,'' McIlroy said. "I just think it's a great thing for this Tour that the members that play on this Tour full-time have a place to play long into the future.
"But for me personally, I think I'm just going to play the same schedule that I've basically played for the last sort of five years. It may encourage me to add an event here or there, (but) for the most part I'll probably keep doing what I've done the last few years.''