Rory McIlroy modifies swing during three-week isolation - ESPN

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Rory McIlroy can finish the season as the European tour's top player for the sixth time with a win at the Abu Dhabi Championship this week.

He will attempt to do so with a new swing.

The No. 3-ranked McIlroy said he has been hunkered down in a studio — first in Florida, then in New York — for three weeks, just hitting balls at a screen with a modified swing and not even looking at the flight of his shots.

He hasn't liked the shape of his swing for a while, he said Wednesday, and wanted a more robust one that could hold up in the most pressure-filled moments following a number of missed chances this season. The most notable was at the U.S. Open in June, where he missed two putts in the 3-foot range in the final three holes Sunday to pave the way for Bryson DeChambeau's victory and extend McIlroy's decade without a major title.

«The only way I was going to make a change, or at least move in the right direction, with my swing was to lock myself in a studio and not see the ball flight for a bit and just focus entirely on the movement,» McIlroy said.

«It's something,» he added, «just to make my golf swing more efficient, and then if it is more efficient, then it means it's not going to break down as much under pressure. If I look at my year, the one thing that I would criticize myself on is the fact that I've had these chances to win.»

McIlroy has won twice this year, at the Dubai Desert Classic and the Wells Fargo Championship, and has had four second-place finishes, including recently at the Irish Open and the BMW PGA Championship on the European tour.

That has left the Northern Irishman frustrated but well clear in the Race to Dubai rankings that determine the best player of the year on