Rory McIlroy insists he is focused on claiming his third win of the year in the Texas Children's Houston Open, despite the Masters looming ever closer.
McIlroy made his annual trip to Augusta National following his victory in the Players Championship at Sawgrass, which came six weeks after he kicked off his PGA Tour season by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
The world number two wanted one more competitive start before his latest attempt to win the Masters and complete the career grand slam and has opted for a first Houston Open appearance since 2014 instead of next week’s Valero Texas Open in San Antonio.
"I just want to get a card in my hand and shoot scores and hopefully get myself in contention and try to win another golf tournament," McIlroy told a pre-tournament press conference.
"It’s not as if I’m playing here this week and thinking about two weeks’ time. I’m here, I’m in the present, I’m trying to do my best this week and trying to win this golf tournament.
"I’m obviously playing well, I want to keep playing well, so I think every round you play where you see good things you’re sort of filling up that confidence bucket a little bit, so I want to see that.
"It was great to get a win a couple weeks ago but I still feel I could have played a lot better. I tried to poke holes in a lot of my game last week and think about things I could do better, and there were definitely things that I could work on or do better.
"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."
McIlroy’s recent trip to Augusta allowed him to assess the state of the course following the damage caused by Hurricane Helene last autumn, with four greens – including the 16th – having also been relaid.
"The loss of a few trees is definitely noticeable, they’ve had to redo that [16th] green but it’s exactly the same as what it was," McIlroy added.
"The hole will play… apart from maybe a few less shadows on the green late in the day because of a couple of trees that were lost, but apart from that, it’s pretty much the same."
Defending Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, who is seeking a third green jacket in the space of four years, is also in the field in Houston, where his second place last year came in between four victories.
Meanwhile, six-time major champion Phil Mickelson has said he owes "so much of my success" to Dave Pelz following the death of the renowned short-game coach at the age of 85.
Pelz, who died at his home in Texas on Sunday, began his career as a scientist with NASA before becoming a golf researcher and was one of the first to analyse the importance of the short game, uncovering that almost 80 per cent of shots lost to par took place within 100 yards of the hole.
He developed more than 40 different training aids and worked with numerous top players on their short game, including major winners Mickelson, Tom Kite, Lee Janzen, Steve Elkington, Vijay Singh, Payne Stewart, Mike Weir and Patrick Reed.
"I have so many things to say about this incredible man," Mickelson wrote on social media site X.
"I owe so much of my success to the many things he taught me and he lives on as I share those same insights to numerous other golfers.
"The laughs we shared along the way is what I cherish most and I look forward to paying tribute to this great man with "Pelz stories" in the near future. Rest in peace my friend."
Former Masters champion Reed told SI.com: "I was saddened to hear about the passing of my friend, Dave Pelz.
"Dave made an indelible mark on the game of golf. He was an incredibly kind and gentle man with a generous spirit.
"The way he used his scientific brilliance to influence what the rest of us could accomplish through the game of golf will always be remembered."
