DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – NOVEMBER 13: Rory McIlroy speaks to the media during a press conference prior to the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates on November 13, 2018. (Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)
By Kent Gray
Rory McIlroy will bypass the Desert Swing by choice for the first time since turning professional in 2007, a huge blow for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and Omega Dubai Desert Classic and an apparent snub of the European Tour.
The 29-year-old Northern Irishman told media at the DP World Tour Championship on Tuesday he may play as few as two “pure” European Tour events in 2019 as part of a concerted effort to add to his four major titles.
But tour insiders approached by Golf Digest Middle East insist there is more to the full-time shift to the PGA Tour with the funding elevation of Abu Dhabi to a $7 million Rolex Series event and inflated appearance fees paid to American-based stars for the January event, as opposed to European Tour regulars, thought to be part of the controversial decision.
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McIlroy’s announcement sent shockwaves through the Race to Dubai decider as much as the two-time DP World Tour Championship winner tried to play down the move.
He indicated he would tee it up in the European Masters in Switzerland in August and probably the Scottish Open rather than Ireland, an event his foundation has hosted the past four years, ahead next July’s Open Championship. If he were to bypass his home open, it would be a double whammy blow as it is one of the tour’s premier Rolex Series events.
If McIlroy follows through on his plans, it would mean he would not satisfy the European Tour’s already meager yearly membership requirements – four events outside the majors and WGC events – and therefore miss the 2019 Race to Dubai decider at Jumeriah Golf Estates, a title he’s won twice (as well as three European No.1 crowns).
“Right now that’s all up in the air,” McIlroy said of his European Tour schedule for 2018.
“But if it were to be that I don’t fulfil my membership next year, it is not a Ryder Cup year so it is not the end of the world.”
It’s unlikely the European Tour hierarchy will see it that way. The former world No.1 remains one of the tour’s marquee players despite winning the last of his 13 titles in 2016 at the Irish Open. Doubts about his chances of ever captaining the European Ryder Cup team have already been raised.
The decision is certainly a blow for Abu Dhabi, an event he’s played every year since 2008 (barring last season when he was injured) and finished second in three times and third four times. He also launched his career at the Desert Classic, first playing as an amateur in 2006 before winning the Dallah trophy in 2009 and 2015. As an ambassador for Omega, McIlroy is obligated to play in at least one event sponsored by the watch maker but he’s chosen Switzerland over Dubai.
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McIlroy said he would start 2019 at the PGA Tour’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii and had yet to confirm his European commitments due to the scheduling shakeup on both sides of the Atlantic forced by the shift of the U.S. PGA Championship, traditionally the year’s final major, from August to May with the Players Championship reverting to March.
It means the FedEx Cup play-offs will now be in August, a month earlier, and has seen the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship move to September rather than May.
“I don’t have to commit to that until next year [his European schedule] so I’m starting my year off in the States. That’ll be the big focus of mine up until the end of August and then, obviously, we will assess from there.
“I’ve got a couple of pure European Tour events on my schedule up to the end of August. I guess my big thing is I want to play against the strongest fields week in, week out, and for the most part of the season that is in America.
“And if I want to continue to contend in the majors and continue my journey back towards the top of the game, that’s what I want to do.”
McIlroy insisted helping Europe defend the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in 2020 remains a priority.
“I’m always going to want to play the Ryder Cup so if that does happen [annulling his European Tour membership], so be it, and I try to make the Ryder Cup team the year after. It is a big shift but I think it is good for a lot of reasons.”
McIlroy will play only once in the next 13 weeks after the DP World Tour Championship.
“To have that break and impose an off season on myself, I can then go at it hard in March, all the way through to basically the end of the season,” he said.
“The way the schedule has worked for next year it is going to be different for a lot of guys. I think everything is going to be so condensed between March and August so that’s why I’m going to be taking quite a big off season to get myself ready.”
