McIlroy is targeting his eighth professional title in Dubai after four Dubai Desert Classic victories and three wins in the European Tour\u2019s Tour Championship.<\/p>\n
The Northern Irishman made six birdies on the back nine after starting on the 10th hole, before grinding his way to the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good. I got off to a great start, played a very good first nine,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the wind got up a little bit and felt like that front nine, which was our second nine, was the trickier one.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy, who became only the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam with his Masters triumph last April, said he has been working hard in the close-season and changed his set of irons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the work. I like the process. I enjoy doing challenging things,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the more and more you do that, the more it just sort of becomes who you are. And I\u2019ve done it for so long now that if I didn\u2019t do it, it would feel pretty foreign at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy\u2019s 2025 Ryder Cup-winning teammates Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood are three strokes back in a group at two-under, alongside former Masters winner Patrick Reed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McIlroy is targeting his eighth professional title in Dubai after four Dubai Desert Classic victories and three wins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,806,1975,5822,5162,18829,91582,4225,139152,26663,1888,132086,139154,4131,18830,139153,194,7240,101,1362,38594,111,139,69,139155,35138,18833,5128,213,4497,199,1120,208,102,377,379],"class_list":["post-235124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-as","tag-at","tag-bright","tag-chasing","tag-daniel","tag-dp","tag-dubai","tag-falters","tag-fired","tag-first","tag-firstround","tag-fiveunder","tag-fox","tag-hillier","tag-invitational","tag-kiwi","tag-lead","tag-left","tag-made","tag-mcilroy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oneshot","tag-rory","tag-round","tag-ryan","tag-sports","tag-start","tag-take","tag-takes","tag-tour","tag-with","tag-world","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}