The Northern Irish golfer completed the career Grand Slam with his thrilling victory at Augusta earlier this year and admits that he has found it hard to find his desire to practice since achieving his lifelong dream of winning the Green Jacket.

McIlroy said: "The last few weeks I've had a couple weeks off, and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be.

"You have this event in your life that you've worked towards and it happens, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again."

McIlroy is back in action at the Canadian Open this week and revealed that he has taken some time away from the course in recent weeks to have a "reset".

The world number two said: "I think the last two weeks have been good for me just as a reset, just to sort of figure out where I'm at in my own head, what I want to do, where I want to play.

"I thought it was a good time to reset some goals. I've had a pretty good first half of the season, and I want to have a good second half of the season now, too."

McIlroy struggled at last month's PGA Championship but defended his decision not to speak to the media following his rounds during a "weird week" at Quali Hollow that saw his driver declared as nonconforming in pre-tournament tests.

The five-time major champion explained: "I didn't play well the first day, so I wanted to go practice, so that was fine. Second day, we finished late. I wanted to go back and see [daughter] Poppy before she went to bed.The driver news broke. I didn't really want to speak on that.

"Saturday, I was supposed to tee off at 8:20 in the morning. I didn't tee off until almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon, another late finish. [I] was just tired, wanted to go home. Then Sunday, I just wanted to get on the plane and go back to Florida."