Rory McIlroy has revealed how new girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki has taken to golf like duck to water – worryingly so for the world’s number two ranked golfer.

US Open champion McIlroy, in Hong Kong in his latest bid to top the European Order of Merit, organised golf lessons for the world’s top female tennis star during a recent holiday in Dubai.

And he readily admits that Wozniacki shows more potential at golf than he does at tennis.

“I took her for a lesson with a good friend of mine who is one of the pros at the Els Club in Dubai,” McIlroy told the Irish Examiner.

“I would be hopeless at teaching someone to play golf and it’s hard to explain because golf is just so natural for me.

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“At the end of the lesson she was hitting 7 irons about 140 yards. Being a tennis player her upper body is pretty strong but she’s struggling a bit because she is always hanging back on her right side, as they do in tennis.

“When she can learn to shift her weight to the left side, she’s going to be so much better. So for the time being she has more potential at golf than I do at tennis.

“The thing is that when I play tennis the competitive side in me comes to the fore and I want to play well every time but it just doesn’t happen. I would get more frustrated because I want to be able to grasp tennis straight away.

“Improving my tennis game is not the reason we spend time together. I will let her focus on the tennis and I will stick with golf.”
 
Currently reading books on Rafa Nadal and Andre Agassi, the 22-year-old revealed he is looking to learn from tennis’s top stars.

The Ulsterman added: “When Caroline and I might discuss our own sport, I am very interested in how she prepares herself for the mental side of big tennis tournaments like how she goes about setting goals or whatever.

“That sort of discussion gives me a good insight into how she deals with similar issues I might face.

“Rafa Nadal’s book was a pretty good insight into his mindset. You look at Nadal and you think he’s unbreakable but in reading his book you see how mentally fragile he feels he still is yet he’s already won 10 Grand Slam titles.”

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