Rory McIlroy has revealed a second reason why he will contest the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship later this month.

It was only earlier this week the European Tour heralded the double Major winner will tee up at ‘Tour HQ’.

And this only came about as McIlroy was at home last week in Florida and thought he was playing well enough that he might as well enter the BMW hosted event.

Rory McIlroy will return to the BMW PGA this month not only to get his head around the golf course but also appease Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley. (Picture Stuart Adams www.golftourimages.com)

The European Tour media service jumped on the news immediately sending out a blanket press release.

And in a Wentworth originated line McIlroy was quoted in the release: “Some of the greats of the game have won the title over the years and it would certainly be nice to join them on the Championship’s 60th anniversary.”

However McIlroy’s never played well on the West Course since the controversial changes including having missed the cut the last two years.

But in the back of McIlroy’s mind was also a desire to appease European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley in adding the event to his schedule and hopefully ‘locking-in’ his place on McGinley’s European Ryder Cup side.

“I’m third on the Ryder Cup rankings at the moment and one of the reasons I decided to add Wentworth to my schedule, because I wasn’t going to play, was that one day last week while back at home I just thought ‘Oh, I’m playing well at present I might was well play Wentworth’”, McIlroy said.

“Also another reason for playing is to get my Ryder Cup locked in and not leave Paul McGinley having to think about it over the summer.

“But then I’ll go back to Wentworth even though I haven’t played well there since the changes.  I was fifth there in ’09 but I’ve since struggled on the new West Course.

“So I’ll go back and try again.”

McIlroy will be among at least 20 possible and probable Gleneagles players to be measured at Wentworth for Ryder Cup attire.

And it has not be lost on McIlroy that the road leading into Quail Hollow is named Gleneagles Road, and with McIlroy quietly confident of qualifying automatically for Paul McGinley’s European Team.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that every year I’ve been coming here but I guess it’s been more noticeable this year what with the Ryder Cup to be played at Gleneagles,” he said.