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McIlroy vows to improve ahead of the Open

Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines - World number four Rory McIlroy says he is ready to challenge for the British Open in a fortnight's time at Royal Troon, after finishing third in the French Open on Sunday.

McIlroy went into the final day at Golf National just two shots behind eventual winner Thongchai Jaidee, but ended up five off the pace.

The 27-year-old won the British Open in 2014 at Royal Liverpool, but missed his title defence last year at St Andrews through injury.

The four-time major champion is yet to play competitively at Troon so will go to the course next weekend to get some practice.

"I've got 10 days until the Open starts. I'm going to play a bit of links golf and work on the shots that I'll need for Troon as well," he said.

"I'm confident with where I'm at, and even though this week it didn't feel that good, I'm obviously doing some things right.

"I don't actually know much about it (Troon), I'm going to go over this week and play a couple of days and try and figure out what I need to do there.

"It was really disappointing not to be able to defend at St Andrews last year, but hopefully I can play somewhere near how I did in Liverpool and give myself a chance."

A blistering back nine of 30 in the third round in France showed McIlroy is not far from his best form, even though he could not reproduce it on Sunday.

"There were a couple of swings on the back nine that I need to work on. I was getting quite steep with my irons, which has been a problem anyway, so I need to try and work on that going forward," the Northern Irishman added.

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