Eighteen-time Major winner Jack Nicklaus has warned Rory McIlroy he has work to do if he wants to fully utilise his talent and dominate the sport.
The 27-year-old Northern Irishman has captured four Major titles - two US PGAs, the 2011 US Open and the 2014 British Open - but with so many top-class players jostling for glory, and many of them of a similar age or younger than McIlroy, more titles will be hard to come by.
Nicklaus has no doubts about the Holywood man's talent, but believes he needs another dimension to consistently lift himself above his rivals.
"Rory is one of those young men who has got a tremendous amount of talent," Nicklaus told BBC Sport.
"He has won and played on his talent to this point. If he wishes to dominate and go forward then he's got to improve.
"He has to work hard, he's got to focus on what he is trying to do and it is up to him. Certainly he has all the tools to be able to do it - it is just whether he has the desire and the willingness to give up some other things.
"And that's his call. I mean, whatever Rory does, he has established himself as one of the great players that has ever played the game.
He has to work hard, he's got to focus on what he is trying to do
"Whether he wants to be the greatest player to have played the game, that's his determination and it's his decision whether he wants to make that effort to try to do that."
The Masters is the only Major that has eluded McIlroy, but Nicklaus is backing him to put that right sooner rather than later.
"I think he will win the Masters [some day]," he added.
"He certainly has the type of game that would do well at Augusta and he has done well before - he just hasn't finished it."
World number two McIlroy competes in the $2.65m Dubai Desert Classic in February having won the event in 2009 and 2015 and finished in the top 10 in each of his seven previous visits to the Emirates Golf Club.
"I have great memories of this tournament," he said on Monday.
"I made the cut here for the first time in a European Tour event as a 17-year-old amateur in 2007 and it was here I secured my first professional win two years later.
"I will always cherish those important moments in the early part of my career. That first win was a real stepping-stone for me, helping my confidence and leading to the successes that followed."
