McIlroy means business in Houston: “I want to keep playing well"

Rory McIlroy speaks to the media in Houston

Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler insist they won’t be keeping an eye on each other but this week’s Texas Children's Houston Open will go a long way towards deciding who will take the favourite’s tag into the Masters Tournament in two weeks.

The word’s top two headline a strong field at 7,475-yard Memorial Park where they can lay down a psychological marker by heading to Augusta National with a win.

Scheffler hasn’t won since claiming his ninth win of a stellar 2024 season at the Hero World Challenge but while McIlroy insists he will be worrying about no-one but himself, he’s still gunning for his third victory of the season and looking to “fill up the confidence bucket” in Texas.

“Look, in any other sport you may be looking at what your opponents or competitors or doing, but if I go out this week and I shoot four 65s, pretty sure that will be OK,” McIlroy said.”I just have to worry about myself.”

The Holywood star says he’s been inspired by Scheffler’s stunning rise to world number one to work in his course management, but Scheffler insists his motivation comes from within.

“Well, I think when you're a competitive guy like Rory is, I think you're always looking for some source of motivation,” Scheffler said of McIlroy, who won The Players with his B-game and wants to see if he can produce his A-game on a big hitter’s course he feels is “right up my alley”.

“You know, he's been out here for a long time and I think sometimes it can get a bit redundant playing the same events over and over and any source of motivation I think you can have when you're such a great player I think is a good thing.”

Scheffler is different.

“Mine’s mostly internal,” Scheffler said of his source of motivation. “I try not to pay attention to what other people are doing.”

Given his Christmas Day hand injury, the Texan is playing catch up when it comes to tournament sharpness but he feels ready to compete in an event where Séamus Power is joined by Pádraig Harrington, looking to build on his eighth place finish in the Valspar Championship on Sunday.

Rather than searching, Scheffler said he’s fine-tuning.

“I would say dialing things in would be a pretty good assessment,” he said..

McIlroy just wants to keep his good run of form going and make sure the kinks he spotted in his game at Sawgrass have been ironed out.

“I'm obviously in playing well,” he said. “I want to keep playing well. So I think every, every round you play where you see good things, you're sort of filling up that confidence bucket a little bit.

“Look, it was great to get a win a couple weeks ago, but I still feel like I could have played a lot better… So it's a good opportunity to go out and see if some of the work I did at home, and I'm continuing to do here, hopefully it's all going in the right direction.”

As for Augusta, he said the loss of trees was evident in places but that his main goal was to “re familiarise” himself with the course and the changes.

“There’s four greens that are new this year that they've redone, so you have a look at those and see if there's any new hole positions they could use, stuff like that,” he said.

“Honestly, for me, it's nice to play a practice round without people around, and it sort of takes the pressure off the start of the week for me.”

Meanwhile, Conor Purcell will be looking to see an upturn in form in the DP World Tour’s Hero Indian Open at demanding DLF Golf and Country Club.

The Portmarnock rookie (27) has made just two of seven cuts since graduating from the HotelPlanner Tour and has a chance this week to move up from 175th in the Race to Dubai in an event where England’s Jon Parry is the only player from the world’s top 100 taking part.

On the LPGA Leona Maguire will be trying to deny defending champion Nelly Korda in the Ford Championship in Arizona, while Olivia Mehaffey and Canice Screene play the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s ABSA Ladies Invitational at Royal Johannesburg & Kensington.

In amateur golf, County Louth has announced that Pharmaher Healthcare will sponsor the East of Ireland Championship from May 30 to June 1.

ENDS