Rory McIlroy Goes For The Trans-Atlantic Double In Dubai

Rory McIlroy got the job done this season on the PGA Tour, now he turns his attention to finishing as top dog on the DP World Tour.

Rory’s after “The Trans-Atlantic” double and he’s the odds-on favorite this week in the DP World Tour Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates’ Earth Course.  He’s more than familiar with the setting — early in his career he was a brand ambassador for Jumeirah.

The European Tour, now the DP World Tour, is where McIlroy started his professional career in 2007 — he’s become the new face of the European Ryder Cup team and is the De facto face of the PGA Tour as he’s been very vocal in the PGA Tour-LIV conversations.

Rory arrived in Dubai earlier this week as the 2022 FedEx Cup champion and he holds a slim 128 point lead in the points standing over Ryan Fox, who had a chance to pass McIlroy last week in the Nedbank Challenge but saw Tommy Fleetwood emerge as the repeat champion.

Fox will be paired with McIlroy for the first round in this elite 50 that features the top 50 in the Race To Dubai points standings.  McIlroy was full of compliments for Fox.  “Ryan has had an amazing season,” McIlroy said. “I saw yesterday he has gone from 217th in the world up to 23rd. That’s an amazing climb. You have to play great golf and you have to play consistently great golf over a decent period of time to get that high. And he’s done that playing golf tournaments that don’t necessarily provide as many world ranking points as some others. It’s great to see.”

Fox, a New Zealander, didn’t make Trevor Immelman’s President’s Cup team this past fall but should have.  Fox will be playing with McIlroy for the first time but said he’ll just keep doing what he’s been doing on the DP World Tour.  “Rory is the best player in the world. He’s obviously the favorite but to be in this position is great and I’ve got nothing to lose this week,” Fox said after a practice round.  “Won’t do anything different from what I’ve been doing all year. Just go out and try to beat the golf course and see what happens in that sense and that’s served me pretty well and hopefully I can do the same thing this week.

“Yeah, there will be nerves. I’m sure we will have pretty big crowds out there, which will be nice.  But that’s what you play golf for. You want to be in those big groups, and it’s cool this year in the fact that I’ve earned the right to be there. Try to enjoy it as much as I can and hopefully continue the good form,” Fox added.  “”I’ve obviously played in a few decent groups, been in contention a lot this year and handled that pretty well, so hopefully nothing changes in that respect on Thursday.”

Although McIlroy’s the No. 1 player in the world, another big name will be among those final groups on Thursday — world No. 5 Jon Rahm.  Along with Rahm, last week’s winner, Tommy Fleetwood (world No. 23) is in good form.  World No. 9 Matt Fitzpatrick will be a player to watch along with No. 11 Viktor Hovland and Ireland’s Shane Lowry (No. 20).

Naturally, when action move to the Middle East, talk of the LIV exhibition series/circus is bound to surface.  Earlier the London-based Telegraph ran a report that The Lamest Commissioner In All The Land (aka Greg Norman, aka The Great White Fish Stick) could soon be replaced by former TaylorMade exec Mark King.  LIV basically gets its attention from wild rumors and this one’s the latest.

Of course on-site European media asked McIlroy about Norman’s possible departure from LIV.

“Greg needs to go,” was McIlroy’s instant response.  “He needs to exit stage left.  He’s made his mark, but I think now is the right time to say you’ve got this thing off ground. No one’s going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences.”

And lately McIlroy is in favor of some sort of “fence-mending.”

Things have been chaotic to say the least.  “I don’t think we will have another year like this one because all of the noise has been about who is jumping ship, who is going where, who is staying, who is going,” McIlroy said. “Very little of the storyline has actually been about the golf. So I think next year, if we can get the storylines to being about the golf and what’s happening on the course, that’s a good thing.”

So Rory can now turn his attention to this event, where he is a cumulative 133-under par in 11 appearances with two victories.

Main question, come Sunday in Dubai, will it be a third victory and a Trans-Atlantic double?

First Round Tee Times, Pairings:

On Television:

First and Second Round:  The Golf Channel;  2 a.m. (ET) – 8 a.m. (ET).

Re-broadcast:  8 a.m. – 11 a.m. (ET)

Saturday-Sunday:  TBA