McIlroy excited for PGA Tour return

World number eight Rory McIlroy is eager to finally make his PGA Tour season debut.

Rory McIlroy is excited for his PGA Tour season debut as he prepares for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

McIlroy has already reaffirmed his status among the world's best golfers while playing in Europe this year – twice finishing in the top three – but this week at Pebble Beach he finally returns to the PGA Tour.

McIlroy, ranked eighth in the world, has not played on Tour since the BMW Championship in September, and he is eager for his comeback.

"It's good to be back in the States and playing again," McIlroy told a news conference on Wednesday. "I'm feeling healthy and I don't think I could have picked a better week to come back over here. It's obviously beautiful. It's been a nice few days of preparing, seeing a couple of golf courses that I've never seen before. So, yeah. No, I'm excited to be back, I'm excited for this year.

"The last time I sat in an interview room on the PGA Tour I wasn't feeling too good about myself, but I'm really happy to be back and looking forward to starting a busy run over the next few weeks leading up to the first major of the year."

McIlroy is teeing it up alongside a familiar face – his Dad – this week. He said that was a big reason why he chose this spot as his return to the Tour.

"I would say one of the reasons we came here is, obviously, I'm playing with my Dad, so that's a part of it," McIlroy said. "It's nice to be able to come here and play with him. But I think with the Middle East run ending a week earlier and having a week in between here and – or Dubai and here, that helped as well. So we could fly back to Florida, sort of get settled, get everything sort of set there and then make our way over to the West Coast.

"So I think just that extra week has helped. And it's a tournament that I've always watched and I've always thought one day it would be really cool to play with my Dad and fortunately we were able to get him in and play. And we've played the last three days and it's been a lot of fun and just hope he hasn't tired himself out. He's got a lot of golf left over the next few days."