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McIlroy not focused enough

Cape Town - 2014 Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley has questioned Rory McIlroy's concentration levels after the 27-year-old finished well off the pace at the Players Championship last week.

McGinley and McIlroy worked together at the 2014 Ryder Cup which Europe won at Gleneagles. The former as captain, the latter as a player.

In the aftermath of McIlroy's disappointing week at the Players Championship where he wound up in a tie for 12th, eight strokes behind tournament winner Jason Day, McGinley had some choice words for the former world number-one.

"For some reason, his concentration levels are down," McGinley started.

"It is not his game. It is not his putting or his chipping. And it’s not his balls because we know he can handle the big occasions.

"But he is not focusing like you need to do for 72 holes. He is coming in and out of focus."

McGinley also went to say that the best players in the world at the moment are able to win ugly and that McIlroy needs to find a way of doing that too if he is to keep up with the likes of Jordan Spieth and Day.

"He (Day) is finding a way to win with his B game and Jordan Spieth almost did the same thing at the Masters," McGinley continued.

"These guys don't have to be on their game to win.

"You need to be able to get up and down and shoot level par for nine holes when you are playing rubbish and get it up and down five times because you are not going to be on your game for 72 holes."

If McIlroy doesn't break a run of three successive missed cuts in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and lift the title at The K Club on Sunday evening, he will have gone six months without winning a tournament.

Could it be that a career that promised so much might not deliver on a scale that the world expected it would?

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