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 The four-time major winner's participation in the Turkish Airlines
Open was thrown into doubt after he ruptured ankle ligaments in July
while playing a friendly game of football with his friends.
The injury cost him his number one world ranking and a chance to
defend his British Open title at St Andrews, but the Northern
Irishman now says he is fit enough to get back into the hunt for
titles.
The current world number three made his comeback with a 17th-placed
finish at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in mid-August
and played in three FedEx Cup play-off events before starting the
new PGA Tour season with a tie for 26th in the Frys.com Open in
California.
"Health-wise, I'm pretty much back to where I need to be. I've
started to train the way I was before the injury again," McIlroy
told a pre-tournament news conference on Thursday.
"So trying to get my game back into the shape that I know that I can
and feel like I've made a few steps in the right direction.
The Turkish Airlines Open kicks off the Final Series, a lucrative
four-tournament series that brings the curtain down on the European
season with the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in November
being the last.
"I want to try and get back into contention and no better place than
this week," said McIlroy, who leads the European Tour's Race to
Dubai currently. "I'd like to win The Race to Dubai. I'd like to win
at least one of last three events that I'm playing.
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"If I was to go from then to the end of the season without another
win, especially with how I was playing up until that point, it would
be very disappointing.
"It's sort of been two steps forward and one step back a little bit
since I've come back from injury, and I would just like to keep
moving forward these next four weeks and try to finish the season on
a positive note."
(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar and Simon Jennings in Bengaluru;
editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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