Thomas Bjorn and Darren Clarke have fought their share of demons in their time but they looked like a couple of older brothers to Holywood's Rory McIlroy as the three-ball plotted its way around the back nine at the Emirates Club in Dubai yesterday.

The European Tour veterans have every reason to want to forget large swathes of a 2006 season that saw one man lose his wife to cancer and the other launch such a vicious broadside on Ian Woosnam after being overlooked for a Ryder Cup wild card that the Welshman considered resigning the European captaincy.

With 27 years on tour between them, the pair looked almost incongruous beside the slightly-built 17-year-old, who is the embodiment of innocence and ambition as he plans to join them in the professional ranks after the Walker Cup this year.

Yet McIlroy says he feels very much at home on the European Tour already, where he is on first name terms with players such as Paul Casey and Henrik Stenson. He has set his sights on going at least a couple of shots better than the two-round total of level par 144 he posted on his debut in the Dubai Desert Classic last year. The plus-five handicapper missed the cut by one stroke that time but he has since retained his West of Ireland and Irish Close titles and added the European Individual Amateur Championship to his growing list of achievements.

Making the cut is no longer the height of his ambition and with a stronger all-round game than last year, the Co Down native wants to make the most of his first competitive appearance for 10 weeks in his ninth "professional" start. Playing Clarke at matchplay is as good a way to prepare as any and the Dungannon man's growing fallibility with the putter meant they finished all square for the second day in a row.

Comparing himself with the 16-year-old who played the event 12 months ago, McIlroy is convinced he is a far better player. "I am a professional amateur," he said. "Yes, I am thinking of September, when I turn pro, but this is my first event of the year and I am not that rusty after coming over early to practice last week. If I can play well this week I will have a lot of confidence going into the amateur season.

"I'm probably a better iron player and I think better on the golf course than last year. Hopefully . . . I can shoot a couple of numbers in the 60s."

A telling sign of McIlroy's maturity is he has decided to dispatch with the services of his father, Gerry, as his caddie this week, in preparation for the day when he will have a tour caddie of his own.

Fellow Ulsterman Alaister Murray, the chief financial officer of the Jumeirah Hotel Group who is putting the McIlroys up at his home this week, will carry the bag. McIlroy will also choose his words carefully. "Sometimes I get a bit uptight when dad is caddying," he said. "It's just part of growing up really. Sometimes, if I'd hit a bad shot he'd ask me 'why did you do that, were you aiming it there?' So I'd say 'I'm not aiming to hit a bad shot, dad', though it's not said that way. So that's pretty much why."

Gerry McIlroy explains it was time to let his son do his own thing. "At the age of 17 I'd have felt the same way as he does," said McIlroy Snr. "It's hard as a father to stand there and say 'Rory, that's not driver, that's three wood' and him saying to me 'It's a driver.' Whereas a proper caddie would say 'Rory that's the club' and he would listen to him."

Clarke struggled badly with his putting in an exhibition match alongside Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood and Mark O'Meara later in the day. The Ulsterman has not been outside the top 50 in the world since 1994 but he is now 47th and a second successive missed cut this week could send him into an early season crisis. The rust in his game - just six strokeplay starts since the British Open last year - has adhered to his putter and he admitted he needs a decent result this week.

"I'll have to get going soon because before we know it, the build-up to Augusta will have started," Clarke said, "and you can't afford to be playing catch-up in April."