Roger Federer chat inspired Rory McIlroy to be more adventurous with tournament choices

McIlroy claimed victory in the first of those events at the K Club on Sunday. On his bag was his best friend Harry Diamond, the same caddie he had for his first Irish Open 20 years ago.

“I don't think I need any extra motivation to try to win major championships,” said McIlroy, “but I think doing it with him definitely adds something more and is very special.

“We’ve done a lot in the game together. We've won Ryder Cups. We've won FedExCups. We've won Players Championships. We've won the Masters.

“It's not like I'm trying to give him new experiences but at the same time last week winning with him on the bag or winning the Masters… you have to ask him, but it certainly means a lot to me that my oldest friend and the guy that I can talk to about anything is there beside me when I'm doing these things.

“Last week, it was cool seeing the images of us together, him caddying for me 20 years ago at the 2005 Irish Open. Fast forward 20 years, we are still on the course and striding the fairways together.

“I'm excited about what the future holds, and excited that hopefully Harry is going to be part of that journey besides me, unless he feels he can get a better bag, but hopefully have another few good years left.”

That he is now, at 36, on the back nine of his career is a notion McIlroy has considered. He will play on long beyond this year, the best of his career, but will not squeeze the orange long after it is dry.

“I don't want to be grounding out here at 50 years of age,” he said.

“I'll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time but you know, whenever I'm done, I'm done, whenever that is. That's certainly not right now, but I'm certainly closer to that point now than I was in 2007 when I turned pro.

“Again, at this point I want to play golf when I want to play golf. I want to play in the locations that I love to go to, and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That's it. I'm not going to be going by minimums or anything else. Like I'll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership and all that on certain tours, but I'm going to play where I want to play.”

Where he wants to play later this year is India and Australia. McIlroy has committed to the India Championship in October and the Australian Open, a tournament he won in 2013, in December.

“I want to go and play in different places in the world and experience things that I haven't experienced before,” he said.

“20 years into a career, or 18 years, to be able to do things for the first time... So go to India and play for the first time or whatever that may be, that excites me.

“I don't want to name a tournament, but you're going back to the same place, the same thing 15, 20 years in a row, it can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious.

“To mix it up and do these things... I had a chat with Roger Federer, I don't know, a few years ago sort of at the end of his career and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career. So some of the smaller 250 events just because not a lot of people had never seen him play tennis before.

“I think as time goes on and I get to this stage of my career, I get excited about doing that sort of thing.”

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