McIlroy will play with world number one Scottie Scheffler at the BMW Championship, teeing off at 16:16 BST on Thursday.

The event marks McIlroy’s first action since finishing in a tie for seventh at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in July, after he skipped the FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis last week – the opening play-off event of the PGA Tour season.

The five-time major winner was criticised by some sections of the media for missing the event, but defended the decision given his schedule for the remainder of the year.

McIlroy, who also noted that other players “aren’t 18 years into their professional careers”, will play at the Irish Open next month before heading to the DP World India Championship in October and the Australian Open in December.

“I feel like I’m in sort of a different position to some of the guys. I’m playing nine times between now and the end of the year so I’ve still got a pretty busy stretch coming up,” he said.

“I think that extra week off will do me good with the events coming up – some big events that are important to me. Irish Open, [the BMW PGA Championship at] Wentworth, obviously the Ryder Cup, and I want to try and win my seventh Race to Dubai.

“There’s some things that are still important to me that I want to go and play in. That was a big part of the reason why I took the week off last week.”