8/15/2013

Rory Confirms Trip Downunder

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Rory McIlroy has revealed he will end his season contesting the Australian Open in Sydney.

McIlroy confirmed his appearance after finishing in a share of eighth place in the defence of his PGA Championship title at Oak Hill.

The Australian Open will be staged at the Royal Sydney course from November 28 to December 1.

"It is pretty much locked in place I will be playing the Australian Open in Sydney," he said.

"It's been a couple of years since I last competed in an Australian Open. I competed in 2006 when I was still an amateur and then a year later after just turning pro.

"Both were in Sydney and I've always enjoyed myself in Sydney so I am very much looking forward to returning to Royal Sydney."

On his last Australian Open appearance in 2007 McIlroy finished well down the field in a share of 59th with scores of 74, 74, 76 and 77.

McIlroy is no stranger to the 2000 Olympic Games host city as earlier this year his girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki contested the Sydney International and the pair were photographed atop Sydney Tower. McIlroy has the photograph on his Twitter page.

There had been suggestions McIlroy was all set to compete in last year's Australian Open for a reported $1 million appearance fee.

However, both Golf Australia and his Dublin-based Horizon Sports manager, Conor Ridge, denied the rumour.

But while McIlroy has not tasted success since then he was still expected to command the million-dollar appearance fee to tee up on the Royal Sydney course.

McIlroy said he has also accepted an invitation a week later to play in the Tiger Woods hosted World Challenge from December 5-8 at the Sherwood Country Club course in suburban Los Angeles.

"It will be a great two weeks to finish up my year so I'm looking forward to competing in both events," he said.

McIlroy admitted after his best finish this year in the Majors he had left the Rochester course with the same feelings experienced last year in Ohio in finishing eighth in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational a week before capturing a second Major Championship victory.

"I feel just like I did in leaving the Bridgestone last year as my game is pretty much in great shape.

"There's still enough golf ahead of me this year to turn it into very good year," he said.

"I have four very big weeks coming up to try and finish off the PGA Tour season well.

"I've also got a few events out in Asia, the Australian Open and Tiger's event so I've got plenty of opportunity to round off my year on a good note."

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Harrington Hoping Fedex Delivers

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Padraig Harrington hopes history can repeat itself at the Wyndham Championship this week.

The Dubliner sits 129th in the FedExCup standings, four places outside the qualification places for the play-offs, which begin with The Barclays next week.

Harrington was in almost exactly the same position two years ago when he arrived in Greensboro in 130th place, and a tie for 47th was enough to lift him into 124th.

He made the second play-off tournament too, and is optimistic he will continue his record of always having qualified for the play-offs.

"I need to have a good week. I'm thinking top 25 should be good enough. So that's the goal," he said.

"Well, the goal is to go out there and win, and if I can't win, finish in the top 25 and give myself a chance of playing in the first FedExCup event and trying to move on from there.

"There's certainly a distraction in it. There's a lot of thinking and talking, what you need to do. You kind of prepare for this week very much as an isolated week."

Harrington, who missed the cut at the US PGA Championship last week, feels he is playing better than his results suggest.

He said: "It's just been an odd year. I haven't really scored very well. I can't put everything together in a given week. So you have to have patience and accept that this is going to happen every so often and try and be patient to wait for it to turn around, and hopefully it turns around this week. But I'm very happy with the state of my game at the moment and where it's going, and if it doesn't happen this week, I'm sure it will happen over the next number of weeks."

Harrington is not the only big-name player battling to make it into next week's field. Vijay Singh, David Toms, Trevor Immelman, Ben Curtis, Davis Love III and YE Yang are all outside the top 125.

Defending Wyndham champion Sergio Garcia does not have to worry about such matters but he is trying to become the first player since Sam Snead in the 1950s to win the title back to back.

"The only thing I can do is go out there, hopefully play well like I know I can do," he said.


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