It is fair and necessary to focus on a specific name in the hours leading up to the start of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. That of Rory McIlroy. Firstly, because he is defending his title this year, which was also the third he achieved at this event (2009, 2015 and 2023); also because he faces the great challenge of adding his fourth victory at the Emirates Golf Club, the legendary venue of the tournament, which would break the tie with Ernie Els, who also won three times; or because the Northern Irishman, since 2009, the year he first won, has not dropped out of the tournament’s top ten in the ten editions he has played, an absolutely crazy fact.
But we could still expand his dimension further, because the numbers clearly dictate that McIlroy is the true and real King of the Desert. There has been no player like him in this part of the world, extending his range of action and achievements to all the tournaments he has played in the Middle East, those in Abu Dhabi and Qatar, in addition to those in Dubai. There have been a total of 41 to date and in almost a third of them (12/41, 29.26 percent) he finished first or second, as he has won five times (three Dubai Desert Classic and two Dubai finals) and has finished second on seven occasions, including last week’s. Let’s repeat: in almost one in three appearances he finished first or second…
In addition, in half of them (18/41, a 43.90 percent) he finished first, second or third. And if we go to the percentage of top ten, the figure goes to a staggering 73.17 percent (30/41), so little or nothing more can be added to legitimately declare him the King of Dubai, of course, and also of the entire desert.
Beyond his extraterrestrial performance in the Middle East, Rory also needs to be listened to when he sits down to talk, especially in these turbulent times for high-level golf, and even though he has already retired from the front line of representation in the offices. Today, in the hours leading up to the start of this tournament, he has dropped a sentence that has a lot of substance and a certain apocalyptic tone (although Rory is not necessarily pessimistic about it). It also somehow describes the concern of many fans of the sport of the fourteen clubs: “Golf is at a very important turning point and we have many opportunities to make it global. But I fear that if we don’t do it now, it will never be done and we will have this fractured landscape forever”.
A serious warning. As you can see, Rory also fervently desires the crystallisation of negotiations (PGA Tour/Saudis, basically) that lead us to a global, worldwide calendar. Today he was talking about it with Pawan Munjal, the head of Hero, a multinational motorcycle manufacturing company and the main sponsor of the tournament, with whom he played the Pro-Am at the Majlis course of the Emirates Golf Club. “Can you imagine, in that hypothetical world circuit, taking the eighty best players in the world to India? I think in these kinds of countries such an event would change the perception of golf,” the player explained about his chat with Munjal.
Negotiations are ongoing, although not much can be added in this regard. Neither does Rory have the magic wand or the ideal recipe, although in general terms he does have a clear idea of what the key is. “It’s very difficult, but to try to reach that dream scenario the key is to align all the different interests that exist. The interests of the players, the business, the fans and the media… Once these interests are aligned, we can move forward”.
A final point of great interest that Rory has been asked about is whether in the construction of this dreamed global circuit it is not the European circuit and, in general, Old Europe, who have the least representation at the negotiating table, especially from the players’ point of view, now that he is no longer there and since the great battle seems to be between the American giant and Saudi capital. Well, in this regard McIlroy has pointed out that the presence of Adam Scott on the committee ensures that truly global vision.
