Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed have a long history of dueling at the most important moments. This rivalry has produced some great golf matches, the most surprising of which may have been last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, which returns to the DP World Tour in the United Arab Emirates from Thursday.
At the 2016 Ryder Cup held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, McIlroy and Reed faced each other on the final day of singles.
The two traded incredible shots on the front nine, but what many will remember was the interaction between the two that excited the crowd with their fingers wagging, hissing, and ear-clasping. But in a show of sportsmanship, the two bumped fists as they walked off one green. Reed won on the 18th hole.
Two years later, Reed and McIlroy faced each other again at the Masters Tournament. This is one of the majors McIlroy still needs to win to achieve a career grand slam. (He won the US Open, British Open, and PGA Championship twice.)
Reed led the tournament from the halfway point and was three strokes behind McIlroy in the final round. Reed won by one stroke, six strokes ahead of McIlroy.
Their rivalry is fierce and I was very much looking forward to a competitive match-up.
Then LIV Golf came along, and the sport split into two rival groups: those who participated in the Saudi Arabian-backed league and those who stayed true to the established professional golf tours, the PGA and DP World Tour.
McIlroy became a player spokesperson on the PGA Tour, while Reed went to LIV and became a member of 4Aces GC, a team captained by Dustin Johnson.
Reed filed a defamation suit against Golf Channel and several golf writers, but the suit was dismissed and appealed. In McIlroy’s case, he was served a subpoena on Christmas Eve 2022 while he was at home with his family as part of a lawsuit against the PGA Tour and DP World Tour filed by Reed’s attorney, Larry Kleiman.
At last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy had no interest in talking to Reed on the practice range. (He threw a tee at McIlroy after Reed said McIlroy didn’t appreciate him on the practice range.)
What was surprising was the intensity of the tournament that resulted in the duel between Reed and McIlroy.
Like Sentry on the PGA Tour, Hero typically joins a joint DP World Tour season. Dubai has created family resorts around its courses.
As the week progressed, McIlroy and Reed circled each other throughout the tournament, and it became clear that this contest meant more to McIlroy than a regular win.
McIlroy became a leading player on the PGA Tour, expressing his anger at players who went to LIV. In addition to Reid, McIlroy also clashed with Greg Norman, former world No. 1 and CEO of LIV.
“I think Greg needs to go,” McIlroy said in front of Hero. “I think he should just go off stage left.”
After the first three rounds of Hero last year, it looked like McIlroy would cruise to victory. In the fourth round, Reed got off to a hot start, coming in four strokes short. At one point on the back nine, he briefly led. McIlroy drew even after a birdie on the 17th hole.
McIlroy needed a birdie to win before the tee shot on the 18th hole. As the third shot approached, he watched the ball roll into the hole and shouted. Reed started the final round charge but fell behind McIlroy.
“Mentally, today was probably one of the hardest rounds I’ve ever had to play because it’s really easy for emotions to get in the way,” McIlroy said in a press conference. “I had to just focus on myself and forget who was on the leaderboard.”
He added, “This is probably sweeter than the original.”
The victory heightened the feeling of a Ryder Cup duel. LIV golfers were stripped of their PGA Tour membership for joining a rival league but have been allowed to play while a British court mulls whether they can be banned from the DP World Tour.
A year later, McIlroy is taking a different tone toward LIV and its defectors. The change comes 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’re not going to be able to change people’s minds,” McIlroy said on the ‘Stick to Football’ podcast earlier this month. . He continued: “I can’t say we have lost the fight against LIV, but we have accepted the fact that it is now part of our sport.”
He said he was worried about what the continued split in professional golf would mean for the sport and hoped Rahm would still be able to play in the Ryder Cup. He added that he was too critical of people leaving to go to LIV.
“At the end of the day, we are professional golfers and we play to make a living and make money, so I understand,” he said. “But I think that’s just created this department that’s about to break down.”
McIlroy’s manager, Sean O’Flaherty, said McIlroy is preparing for Hero and had nothing to add beyond what he said on the podcast. Reed declined to comment through a LIV representative.
One tournament doesn’t dictate the course of a season, but what made Hero interesting last year was the battle between McIlroy and Reed toward the final hole. McIlroy worries that such competitive battles will become rarer if confined to the major leagues, damaging interest in regular tour stops that rely on celebrities to draw fans.
With so many stars and fan favorites moving to LIV, there are fewer opportunities for top players outside of the four majors to compete. LIV, on the other hand, guarantees that 48 players will attend every event.
“I think what LIV and the Saudis have exposed is that you are asking for millions of dollars to sponsor these events and you can’t guarantee the sponsors that the athletes will show up,” McIlroy said. Podcast. “It’s hard to believe that the PGA Tour has been doing so well for this long.”
Others agree. “If we’re not careful about golf, we’re going to get to the point where people are saying, ‘I’m not really going to watch the Phoenix Open because there’s no Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau or Rahm,’” Hughes-Norton said. He is 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.”
Already, 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 that offer higher prize money and ensure attendance by more elite players. But Norton said he would have to pay an additional $7 million on top of the $13 million sponsor fee.
“Maybe Wells Fargo said we had six celebrities come to our event and now we have none,” he said. “Sponsors are anxious right now.”
If so, we need more battles like last year’s Hero Showdown.
