Gurgaon, March 8: Rising Indian golfer Shubhankar Sharma continues to live a dream as four-time major champion and former world no. 1 Rory McIlroy has extended an invitation to him for a practice round at the Augusta National Golf Club before the Masters begins in April.

When Shubhankar was informed about Mcllroy's invitation, the Indian smiled and said, "I got to know now, I am very happy. He is a role model for me and I would love to play a practice round with him. Let's see when I get there. I have never met him but obviously have seen him, we have played in the same tournament in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and followed him for many many years so it would be nice."

Mcllroy, who is playing this week at Valspar Championships on the PGA Tour, said, "I've been able to watch a little bit of him on TV. Obviously he's won a couple times on the European Tour, had a good chance to win and played in the final group last Sunday with Phil Mickelson."

"Playing in the Masters will be a great experience and my best advice for him is to just embrace the week and have fun and enjoy yourself. The more you can do that, the more Augusta lends itself to letting you just play. If you just go out and play and be creative and sort of use your imagination, you can have a really great week.

"So it's great to see it and great Augusta afforded Sharma an invitation," Mcllroy said at Palm Harbor, Florida.

And when asked if he would be happy to play a Masters practice round in the company of Sharma, Mcllroy happily agreed.

"Yeah. Yeah, like I'm - I got a game arranged on Monday and - yeah, of course I would love to have him join me for a practice round," said Mcllroy.

"I always try to play with some of the guys that to play a practice round. I don't know if they want to pick my brain or someone else's."

After revealing that he played two days of practice last week at the Augusta National, Mcllroy's advice to Sharma was timely as he was asked to recall his first experience of being at Augusta National in 2009, when he was a month shy of his 21st birthday in 2009.

"I felt the first time I was there at Augusta it was not the enthusiasm or being anxious but I was intimidated by the place," said Mcllroy.

"That was my feeling of being at Augusta but the more I've gotten to know the staff and I've gotten to know the caddies, gotten to know quite a lot of members, it's not so intimidating anymore."