Naturally Rory McIlroy will look back on 2009 as the year in which he won his first tournament.

That thrilling finish to the Dubai Desert Classic with his terrific up and down from the sand at the back of the 18th green to hold off a late charge by playing partner Justin Rose was a defining moment from the year’s golf.

He became the darling of America with some scintillating play in the WGC Matchplay in Arizona with a couple of excellent wins before bowing out to eventual champion Geoff Ogilvy.

In April he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and at the Masters he was front page news when some experts thought he would be disqualified for disturbing the sand in a bunker after a flick with his feet.

He wasn’t kicked out and a gutsy finishing round of 70 earned him a tied 20th finish — not bad for his first four rounds at the Augusta National.

That set something of a pattern for the other two Majors played in the US.

A closing 68 took him to joint tenth in the US Open at the punishingly long Bethpage Black, while at the US PGA at Hazeltine he closed with a 70 while the rest of the field was going backwards to end up in a tie for third.

Twelve top ten finishes this year propelled him inside the top 20 in the world rankings and he is now in the top 10.

He’s also rocketed into millionaire status earning an amazing £960,000 on Sunday alone for finishing third in the Dubai World Championship and second in the Race to Dubai to add to all the prize money and cash endorsements he has picked up through 2009.

But for all that, the 20-year-old will feel that he has not really put himself in contention to win often enough throughout the year.

He had early season opportunities in Hong Kong and in the Western Cape in South Africa when he finished second and third respectively.

An opening 64 in Dubai put him in the driving seat there and he did well to hold on to win despite throwing away a six-stroke lead with just nine holes remaining. Losing from that position would have been a devastating blow.

There are aspects of his game which McIlroy needs to improve, most obviously his putting.

He may be top of the European Tour stroke average index at 69.51, but languishes joint 111th in the putts per round list.

He linked up with Padraig Harrington’s putting guru Paul Hurrion earlier in the year.

Hurrion has had McIlroy repeating tedious putting drills ever since. Eventually that will start to pay dividends.

And when he does improve, he really will be a handful as he showed in the first couple of days at last weekend’s Dubai return.

There are two other major factors facing McIlroy as he embarks on his third full year on Tour.

His decision to base himself in the United States next year opens another chapter.

That’s not necessarily as drastic a move as it seems, as he already is committed to the biggest events in the US and would only need to schedule a few more tournaments to be eligible for the FedEx Cup.

The other is one which will affect every other golfer on Tour both here and in the States.

It’s the new regulation which outlaws square grooves on clubs which essentially will make it more difficult for players to generate backspin on the ball from anywhere other than the fairway.

A major facet to McIlroy’s game is the immense power — and therefore distance — his immaculate swing allows him to generate.

But if that is going to land him in trouble in thick rough around greens, he might be forced into adopting a different gameplan.

In one sense, it’s a level playing field as the regulations will apply to everyone.

But in another it will help the more inventive and skilful players in the field such as Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods — although both men might still struggle if they continue to be wayward from the tee.

It has been interesting to see some players in the past couple of months on the European Tour trying out the new clubs in the first round of a tournament only to immediately switch back for the second when the danger of missing the cut has loomed.

In his two and a bit years as a professional on the European Tour McIlroy has played in 56 tournaments with just that one win in Dubai, as well as a play-off defeat in the Omega European Masters in Switzerland last summer.

For a player of his talent, it’s not a great return so far, although he could quite easily have added to that tally with his remarkably consistent play over the couple of months which has brought him five top fives in the last six events.

The disappointment of not capturing the Race to Dubai title as European number one will soon fade and McIlroy himself acknowledged that Lee Westwood, who claimed that title for the second time at the Dubai World Championship at the weekend, fully deserved it instead.

Still, his third-placed finish in the desert took him through €3m for the season which in another year would easily have brought him that title.

By heading to America, McIlroy is continuing to move his career forward at a rapid pace as he continues what has been a steep learning curve. 2010 brings with it a fresh set of challenges — including the Ryder Cup. Expect the boy from Holywood to become an even bigger name and a better golfer.

First impressions: How other top players fared in their early days

Justin Rose: Burst on to the scene as an amateur at Royal Lytham and St Anne's in 1998 when he holed out from the rough on the final hole to secure a tie for fourth place, winning the Silver Medal.

He famously struggled to recapture that form after turning professional the following week, missing 21 cuts in a row.

He finished 197th in the Order of Merit in his first full year as a professional, winning just £6,741, although he played only 16 events.

In 2000 he played 29 events and made 13 cuts, winning £64,719 but would not win on the European Tour until two years later when he claimed the Dunhill Championship.

Sergio Garcia: His thrilling pursuit of Tiger Woods in the 1999 US PGA at Medinah as a 19-year-old catapulted him to world attention as he announced himself as the natural heir to Seve Ballesteros.

But by that time he was well known on the European Tour and had won the Irish Open at Druids Glen earlier that year just a few months after turning professional.

Although he has always played both the PGA Tour and the European Tour, in his first full year in 2000 he came 21st on the European Order of Merit and 27th the following season and had won six tournaments, three on each side of the Atlantic.

Darren Clarke: After turning professional in 1990 Clarke managed only one top ten finish in his first full season on tour.

Six top tens the following year, including finishing runner-up to Bernhard Langer at the Honda Open in Hamburg, saw him finish the year in 41st place on the Order of Merit but his first victory would not come until the following year when he won the Alfred Dunhill Open.

Graeme McDowell: After a glittering amateur career which included a successful Walker Cup, his win at the 2002 Scandinavian Masters was only his fourth start as a professional.

But he would manage only one top ten on the European Tour the following year and now admits that spending so much time on the PGA Tour early in his career after attending college in Alabama, harmed his development as a player.

Seve Ballesteros: In his first full year as a professional in 1975 Seve earned just £4,118, although he missed only one cut in 13 tournaments on the European Tour.

By the following year, though, he was Europe's number one winning £21,496 and he finished joint runner-up to Johnny Miller in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

Tiger Woods: Even though his arrival as a professional was well heralded, no-one was prepared for the way Woods approached his first major in the paid ranks as he took the Augusta National apart in 1997, winning by an incredible 12 strokes from Tom Kite, and the term 'Tiger-proofing' was born.

No more majors were to follow in his first couple of years on the PGA Tour but in only his 42nd week as a pro he had risen to the top of the world rankings and was named PGA Player of the Year, the only man ever to manage that in his rookie year.

He won just one event in 1998 but was at the time going through the process of changing his swing after splitting with coach Butch Harmon.