At the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, drama on and off the track

Rory McIlroy And Patrick Reed have a long history of dueling when it matters most. The rivalry has produced some epic golf matches, perhaps the most surprising of which was last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, which returns to the DP World Tour in the United Arab Emirates starting Thursday.

At the 2016 Ryder Cup, held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, McIlroy and Reed also faced each other on the final day of singles play.

The pair traded incredible shots on the first nine holes, but it was the interaction between them—finger wagging, shushing, folding their ears to rouse the crowd—that many remember. But in a show of good sportsmanship, the two bumped fists as they walked off one green. Reed won the match on the 18th hole.

Two years later, at the Masters Tournament, it was Reed and McIlroy who faced off again. It is the only major McIlroy needs to win to complete the career grand slam. (He has won the United States Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship twice.)

Reed had led the tournament since the middle of the tournament and in the final round McIlroy was three strokes behind. Reed won by one stroke, six strokes ahead of McIlroy.

Their rivalry led to long-awaited confrontations that were fierce and competitive.

Then came LIV Golf and the sport split into two rival groups: those who turned to the Saudi-backed league and those who remained loyal to the established professional golf tours, the PGA and DP World Tours.

McIlroy became a player spokesman for the PGA Tour, while Reed went to LIV and was part of the 4Azen GC, a team led by Dustin Johnson.

Reed has filed defamation suits against the Golf Channel and several golf journalists, but the suits have been dismissed and appealed. In the case of McIlroy, he has receive a summons on Christmas Eve 2022, while he was at home with his family, and which was part of a lawsuit against the PGA Tour and DP World Tour filed by Reed’s attorney, Larry Klayman.

During last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy didn’t feel like talking to Reed on the practice track.Reed hit a ball to McIlroy (after Reed said McIlroy refused to acknowledge him on the driving range.)

What was surprising was the intensity of the tournament, which ultimately ended in a duel between Reed and McIlroy.

Like its PGA Tour counterpart, the Sentry, the Hero is typically a collegiate entry for the DP World Tour season. Dubai has created a family resort around the courses.

As the week progressed, McIlroy and Reed began to battle each other more and more in the tournament, and it became clear that the competition meant more to McIlroy than just a win.

McIlroy had become the leading PGA Tour player to vent his anger at the players who had gone to LIV. In addition to Reed, McIlroy clashed with Greg Normanthe former world number 1 and CEO of LIV.

“I think Greg should go,” McIlroy said for the Hero. “I think he should just go stage left.”

After the first three rounds of last year’s Hero, it looked like McIlroy would go on to win. In the fourth round, trailing by four strokes, Reed started off great. At one point on the back nine, he briefly led. McIlroy tied the lead with a birdie on the 17th hole.

When McIlroy stepped to the tee of the 18th hole, he needed a birdie to win. He hit his third shot close and watched the ball roll into the hole before letting out a howler. Reed had been making a final push but ended up one behind McIlroy.

“Mentally, it was probably one of the toughest rounds I’ve ever had to play because it would be very easy to let your emotions get the better of you,” McIlroy said at a news conference. “I just had to really focus on myself and forget who was at the top of the leaderboard.”

He added: “This is probably sweeter than it should be.”

The victory had the heightened feel of their Ryder Cup clash. Although LIV golfers had their PGA Tour memberships stripped for joining the rival league, they were allowed to play while a court in England considered whether the DP World Tour could bar them.

A year later, McIlroy is taking a different tone about LIV and its defectors. The change came after his Ryder Cup teammate Jon Rahm joined LIV Golf at the end of 2023.

“Ultimately, you can say what you want and do what you want, but at the end of the day, you can’t change people’s minds,” McIlroy said in the “Stick to football” podcast earlier this month. He continued, “I wouldn’t say I lost the battle against LIV, but I just accepted that this is part of our sport now.”

He said he was concerned about what the continuing divide in professional golf would mean for the sport and hoped Rahm could still compete in the Ryder Cup, adding that he had been too judgmental about the men’s departure to go to LIV.

“At the end of the day, we’re professional golfers and we play to make money, so I get it,” he said. “But I think it’s just created a separation that hopefully will stop soon.”

McIlroy’s manager, Sean O’Flaherty, said McIlroy was preparing for the Hero and had nothing to say other than what he said in the podcast. Reed declined to comment through his LIV representatives.

While one tournament doesn’t set the tone for a season, it was the battle between McIlroy and Reed that went down to the final hole that made last year’s Hero interesting to watch. McIlroy fears such competitive battles will become rarer — limited to the majors — and will hurt interest in regular tour stops that rely on big names to draw fans.

With many stars and fan favorites having left for LIV, there is less opportunity for top players to compete outside of the four majors. LIV, however, guarantees that its 48 players will be present at every event.

“I think LIV and the Saudis have exposed that you guys are charging millions of dollars to sponsor these events, and you can’t guarantee the sponsors that the players are going to show up,” McIlroy said on the podcast. “I can’t believe the PGA Tour has done so well for so long.”

Others agree. “I think if you’re not careful with golf, you get to the point where people say, ‘I don’t really want to watch the Phoenix Open because Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Rahm aren’t there,'” said Hughes Norton, the agent who negotiated Tiger Woods’ first deal with Nike and the author of the forthcoming book, “Rainmaker: Superagent Hughes Norton and the Money-Grab Explosion of Golf From Tiger to LIV and Beyond.”

Longtime sponsors including Honda and Wells Fargo have pulled out of PGA Tour tournaments. And other sponsors are questioning the increased costs if their tournament is one of eight signature events, which offer higher prize money and guarantee more elite players, but at a cost of $7 million on top of the $13 million sponsorship fee, Norton said.

“Wells Fargo said maybe there were six big names that used to come to our events and now they’re gone,” he said. “Sponsors are now unsettled.”

If that’s the case, the sport needs more battles like last year’s Hero Showdown.