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Europe's Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley says Rory McIlroy will bounce back from his recent poor run of results.
McIlroy missed the cut in last week's Open Championship at Muirfield, labelling his own play "brain dead" following an opening round of 79, three weeks after also missing the weekend in the Irish Open at Carton House.
The 24-year-old Northern Irishman won five times last year, including his second major by eight shots in the USPGA Championship, to finish top of the money list on both sides of the Atlantic.
But he has yet to record a win in 2013 since a controversial multi-million pound switch to Nike in January, also damaging his reputation by walking off the course during his defence of the Honda Classic and bending a club out of shape during the final round of the US Open last month.
McGinley, who will want a fully firing McIlroy at Gleneagles next year against the United States, told Standard Sport: "At 46 years of age, one of the lessons I've learned is that you have to know who you are and play to your strength, not your weakness.
"Looking back, when I was 24, I wish I got to know myself better. That would have helped my golf.
"Hopefully, Rory will get to know himself really well. Keep doing what works for him. Identify his package, making it stronger and stronger. Rory is not arrogant. He has a lot of common sense and is willing to listen. He will learn and I have no doubt he will come back."
McGinley also pointed to how McIlroy recovered from last year's Open disappointment at Royal Lytham, where he could only finish 60th.
He predicted that the Northern Irishman would target his defence of the year's final major, the US PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York next month, as the time to find his best.
"Everybody was saying Rory was playing rubbish (after Lytham)," added Dubliner McGinley. "A month later he went to the US PGA and won by eight."
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