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The 25-year-old, who first landed the coveted honour in 2012,
won consecutive majors this season at the British Open and PGA
Championship, sandwiched around his victory at the
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
McIlroy won out over Billy Horschel, Martin Kaymer, Jimmy Walker
and Bubba Watson in a vote of his peers.
He also earned the Arnold Palmer Award as the Tour's leading
official money winner ($8,280,096) and claimed the Byron Nelson
Award for adjusted scoring average (68.83).
American Chesson Hadley, winner of the Puerto Rico Open, was
selected Rookie of the Year.
McIlroy displayed remarkable consistency, finishing no worse
than 25th in any of his 17 tournament appearances and placed
outside the top 10 only five times.
He said that 2014 was a more consistent season than when he
previously won the award in 2012 and thanked his peers for
voting him number one.
"It's a great honour and a great honour to win twice in the
space of three years, and hopefully I can win it for many more
years to come," McIlroy told reporters, speaking by telephone
from the 18th tee at St. Andrews, where he was preparing for
this week's European Tour event.
"If I compare 2012 to 2014, I'd say that this year's play was
much more consistent.
"Every time I teed it up I felt like I had a good chance to win,
and that's what I feel like I need going forward, consistency in
my game and being up there each and every week."
The Northern Irishman did not have a discernible weakness in his
game, ranking 16th in total driving, sixth in greens in
regulation and 12th in putting.
He also had two runner-up finishes to go with his three
victories and finished third in the FedEx Cup standings.
After his brilliant 2012 season, McIlroy had a minor slump in
2013 as equipment changes and off-course issues seemingly took a
toll, but he is confident he will have no such problems in 2015
as he cuts his schedule slightly.
"I think just from a maturity standpoint and from being in this
position for a good bit over the past couple years, I'm probably
better equipped to handle it now than I might have been when I
first got to number one back in the middle of 2012," he said.
(Reporting by Andrew Both; Editing by Steve Keating)
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