McIlroy has expanded on plans to broaden his golfing horizons after taking advice from tennis legend Roger Federer.
The five-time major winner, who completed a golf Grand Slam with victory at this year’s Masters, plans to be more selective with the events he takes part in.
McIlroy will play in India for the first time from 16-19 October and will return to the Australian Open for the first time in 11 years in December.
“I want to go and play in different places in the world and experience things that I haven’t experienced before, to be able to do things for the first time 18 years into a career,” McIlroy told a news conference
“I had a chat with Roger Federer, I don’t know, a few years ago sort of, at the end of his career, and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career, some of the smaller events, just because a lot of people had never seen him play tennis before.
“I think as time goes on and I get to this stage of my career, I get excited about doing that sort of thing.”
McIlroy has not yet thought about the age when he will retire from professional golf but said his priority will be to keep things fresh rather than endure the slog of the tour.
He added: “I don’t want to be grinding out here at 50 years of age. I’ll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time, but whenever I’m done, I’m done, whenever that is.
“I don’t want to name a tournament, but you’re going back to the same place, the same thing 15, 20 years in a row. It can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious.
“I want to play in the locations that I love to go to, and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That’s it.
“I’ll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership on certain tours but I’m going to play where I want to play.”
