By Kent Gray
After 104 days out of the media centre (apparently there’s even a golf stat for that now), there was a lot to catch up on and not even Rory McIlroy’s personal life was out of bounds.

From the condition of his ticker to matters of the heart, including a epic pre-marriage road trip around Italy in a 1950s Mercedes convertible with bride Erica Stoll, McIlroy happily opened up on his 3.5 month “sabbatical” on the eve of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship

Related: Ror-ing Back – “My next 10 years starts here”

It was a fascinating recap full of reflection and hope which the 28-year-old Northern Irishman, noticeably trimmed down, will take onto the 10th tee at 7:40am Thursday in the marquee first round group alongside world No.1 Dustin Johnson and European No.1 and defending champion Tommy Fleetwood.

McIlroy missed Abu Dhabi last year with a rib injury in what proved a frustrating precursor to the first winless year of his career. He shut down his season after a disappointing T-63 at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in October and has spent the intervening period rebuilding his health and golf fitness.

“I’m very happy to be back. I felt like I needed it [the 3.5 month break] physically and mentally,” said McIlroy.

“I’ve been out here for 10 years and it just felt like it was a little bit of a sabbatical… get ready for the next 10 and I will feel like I’ve done that which is really nice.”

So what exactly did you do?

McIlroy hits an approach into the par 5 18th on The National during practice Tuesday.

For starters there was the Italian road trip before he began his rehab proper in Dubai from late October.

“I think I played one round of golf when I was here [controversially during the DP World Tour Championship], and that was it. I wasn’t really hitting many woods or drivers at that point. Then I went back to the States for two weeks over Thanksgiving, and then that’s when I started to ramp it up a little bit.”

A full health check-up ensued – he’d know about his irregular heart beat since April and insists it is a non issue – which has prompted a healthier diet which he described as “sort of common sense”.

After Christmas in New York and some snowy New Year practice in Belfast via celebrations at Ashford Castle in County Mayo, he was back in Dubai to ratchet up preparations for Abu Dhabi – all the while with an eye to The Masters in April and September’s Ryder Cup.

“Honestly, I was excited to be done [at the Dunhill Links}. I could have shut it down after the PGA Championship last year very easily and taken the rest of the year off, but I didn’t. I played five events after that, played okay. I had a chance to win one of them. But I was just excited to take that time off and get myself just sort of reset.

“I think the next two weeks will be a big learning curve, just to see where I’m at. I’m obviously coming into the events trying to play as well as I can and trying to compete and trying to win, but I think there will definitely be things — I’ll walk away from the two events [including the Omega Dubai Desert Classic next week] and I’ll have things to work on and maybe think about going into that stretch in the States.”

So do you think you need to win one of your next eight events before Augusta to have a legitimate shot at that elusive and career Grand Slam-sealing green jacket?

“I don’t need to but I’d love to.  I mean, it would be ideal if I were to win one of these next eight events or whatever, hopefully not just one. Yeah, it would be great for my confidence going into Augusta.

“But even if that doesn’t happen, hopefully I can take a lot of confidence away from things that I’ve seen in my game, maybe even if the results don’t quite come my way, even last year, like I finished second in South Africa, fourth in Bay Hill, seventh in México. So I still felt like there was some decent results there going in. So I took a little bit of confidence from that. It’s been, what is it, 14, 15, 16 months since I won, so I’d love to get back in the winner’s circle as soon as possible.”

McIlroy watched plenty of golf on TV during his break including the return of Tiger at his own Hero World Challenge and can now fully empathise with what Woods has gone through.

“Oh, yeah, [but] I’ve only been through five per cent of what he’s had to go through. And you can tell like from where he was to where he is now mentally because of physically where he is, he’s a totally different person.

“I know he was in a dark place there for a while. It’s just so great to see him out of that and back and excited to be playing golf again. But yeah, I feel like I sort of know what he felt like but it was probably times a hundred.”

Tiger might have done it tougher but 2017 was no cakewalk for McIlroy courtesy of those pesky ribs. He admitted the injury had “massively” impacted him mentally.

“Didn’t really practice much between tournaments because I couldn’t. I was just trying to rest and trying to keep myself going. So that mentally gets you because every time you turn up at an event, you don’t feel prepared. You don’t feel like you’ve done enough work to be ready and then even if you do get yourself in contention, almost feel a bit guilty that you’re there because you haven’t done the work.

“So mentally, I just wasn’t in a great place, and that was because of where I was physically. So that’s been really nice now to be unrestricted in practise and do what I’ve needed to do and feel like I’ve put the body of work in so that when I go to tournaments, I feel prepared and I feel ready to challenge.”

The field in Abu Dhabi have been warned.