{"id":5944,"date":"2026-01-15T14:08:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5944"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:08:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:08:35","slug":"rory-mcilroy-world-number-two-excited-for-2026-after-strong-start-in-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5944","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy: World number two excited for 2026 after strong start in Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Rory McIlroy says a desire to take on “challenging things” can fuel further success in 2026 as he made a strong start to his season at the Dubai Invitational.<\/b><\/p>\n

The world number two completed a career Grand Slam with victory at the Masters last April. He later helped Europe win the Ryder Cup in New York, while he also triumphed at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Players Championship and Irish Open.<\/p>\n

In his first competitive outing of the year, McIlroy carded an opening five-under 66 to take the first-round lead at Dubai Creek Resort.<\/p>\n

Despite becoming just the sixth golfer to complete a career sweep of men’s majors, motivation remains high for McIlroy.<\/p>\n

“I like the work and like the process,” McIlroy told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

“I enjoy doing challenging things and I think if you can make that the important part and make it routine, you don’t need motivation to do it. It’s your lifestyle and what you do.<\/p>\n

“I guess it’s who you identify as and I identify as a hard worker and someone who likes to do those things.<\/p>\n

“The more you do that, the more it becomes who you are. I’ve done it for so long now that if I didn’t do it, it would feel pretty foreign.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Rory McIlroy says a desire to take on “challenging things” can fuel further success in 2026 as he made a strong start to his season at the Dubai Invitational. The world number two completed a career Grand Slam with victory at the Masters last April. He later helped Europe win the Ryder Cup in New<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}