Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry departed the desert with some food for thought after disappointing conclusions to their starts to the season in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic at the Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club, where former Masters champion Patrick Reed – on one of his regular break-ins from LIV – was faultless in claiming a career first Rolex Series win on the DP World Tour.
While American Reed started and finished a four strokes lead in collecting the winner’s cheque for €1.3 million and jumped from 105th to second on the Race to Dubai order of merit rankings, McIlroy and Lowry flew back stateside for the immediate challenge of facing each other in the TGL indoor league before refocusing for their PGA Tour seasons ahead, starting with the Pebble Beach pro-am in a fortnight’s time.
McIlroy’s closing round 73 for a total of two-under-par 286 left the Northern Irishman in tied-33rd position, his first non-top 10 finish since 2009 in the tournament where he has won four times. Will he continue with his cavity back irons going forward? It’s a question for another day perhaps, but certainly something to ponder.
For Lowry, a final round 70 for three-under-par 285 gave him a tied-26th place but, given his poor performances historically on the Majlis Course, where he has never managed a top 10 and his best finish was tied-11th in 2020, the return to the PGA Tour will be with a sense of anticipation.
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Lowry went 3rd-26th in his two events in back-to-back weeks in Dubai which has provided a solid platform to the year (27th on the Race to Dubai order of merit) before concentrating on the PGA Tour in pushing on towards the Masters in April, where McIlroy defends.
Tom McKibbin emerged as the leading Irish player after a final round 72 for four-under-par 284 for tied-19th and the Ulsterman’s next outing will be in the season-opening tournament under lights in Riyadh on the LIV circuit in two weeks time.
Reed though will remain on the DP World Tour for this week’s Bahrain Championship after a controlled final round march to victory in the Desert Classic, where his closing 72 – two birdies, two bogeys – for 14-under-par 274 gave him a four shots winning margin over Englishman Andy Sullivan who birdied his closing two holes to claim solo second.
In an accomplished final round where he limited the damage and kept to the task at hand, Reed was briefly challenge by playing partner David Puig who got within after back-to-back birdies by the Spaniard – another LIV player – on the eighth and ninth holes.
“Today was a lot harder than I expected. I knew it was going to be (hard),” said Reed. “I just couldn’t really get anything going on the front nine. I learned a lot about the round today. Instead of just keeping the foot on the gas early, I tried to protect that lead since I had a four-shot lead, and next thing you know, David shuts it down to two.”
His caddie Kessler Karain assessed the situation. “Hey, now it’s a dogfight,” he remarked to Reed at the turn, advising: “Now let’s get going. Go shoot under par on the back nine, no one will beat you.”
Of the mindset switch, Reed added: “That’s the hard part. When you try to protect, all of a sudden instead of looking at flags, you’re looking away and you misjudge the wind here or there, you get 50 feet all day long. It’s kind of what happened and good thing we were able to make that switch around the back nine and get it going.”
With the win, Reed made a huge leap up the DP World Tour order of merit to second behind Jayden Schaper and was projected to move from 44th to 29th in the updated world rankings.
