McIlroy clinched two Major Championships -- the Open Championship and the USPGA -- last year, besides the flagship BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour.
"2014 was an incredible year for me. I got off to a decent start to the year. It was solid. I didn't have any wins for the first five months. My first win of the year was at Wentworth, a course that I've historically not played very well at. This was a huge confidence boost for me and set me up for the summer that I had," McIlroy told Laureus.Com.
"You're always hoping that you're going to have a successful year but you don't expect to win two Majors in a row or to play the golf that I did. You hope you can, but it was just nice to be able to produce it when I needed it."
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"To be able to focus on something else and take your mind off what you're doing and put it somewhere else, it really helped for those situations. In the future those two words might be something completely different but at least giving yourself those trigger words helps take your mind away from the result, which I think is a big thing."
"It's a very prestigious honour, the Laureus Awards in sport, to be nominated and be up against some of the greats of world sport. We'll see what happens; it's an honour to be nominated for the Laureus Sportsman of the Year and I hope to win it one day," McIlroy said.