McIlroy ten back as LIV Golf desperatey chases Hatton for Team Rahm
Cameron Young of the USA plays his second shot on the 18th hole on Day Two of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club on January 19, 2024 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
Rory McIlroy needs one of the biggest comebacks of his career to win a record fourth Hero Dubai Desert Classic as news emerged that LIV Golf is desperately trying to sign Tyrrell Hatton after Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Hojgaard rejected offers from the Saudi-funded circuit.
According to the Telegraph, Fleetwood and Hojgaard have both recently turned down contracts in the tens of millions to join Jon Rahm before the league’s season starts in two weeks.
Sources close to Hatton maintain there has been no formal bid, although other insiders insist that LIV has been in talks with the Englishman’s camp.
If true, the Telegraph claims, then along with Rahm’s defection, LIV has tried to entice a third of Luke Donald’s Europe team since the Ryder Cup even as the Tours edge closer to a deal with PIF.
McIlroy remains out of reach for LIV Golf, but he has work to do to catch a player who failed to make last year’s US Ryder Cup team after carding an erratic, two-under 70 to trail American Cameron Young by ten strokes at halfway.
Young added an eight-under 64 to his opening 67 to lead on 13-under par in his quest for his first professional win outside the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour.
But while McIlroy birdied the second and seventh holes to cut the gap, he struggled from the tee, hitting just two fairways all day and bogeyed the eighth and ninth following poor drives to turn 12 strokes off the lead.
He managed to only pick up two strokes on the easier back nine but permitted himself only a wan smile as a 20-footer fell on the 18th green.
He’s overcome big deficits before, winning his first PGA Tour title at Quail Hollow from the cut line in 2010, but never at the Emirates Golf Club, where two of his three wins have come from the halfway lead.
At tied 24th, McIlroy will need a remarkable turnaround to claim a record fourth win this weekend after Young (26), who has Dubliner and former Wake Forest teammate Paul McBride on his bag this week, closed with a bogey at the ninth but still shot an eight-under 64.
The world number 25 has a three-shot lead on 13-under from England’s Andy Sullivan, who shot 67, and another man who failed to make the Ryder Cup, Poland’s Adrian Meronk, who carded a bogey-free 66 just days after being named the DP World Tour’s Player of The Year.
“I putted fantastic,” said Young, who has six runner-up finishes to his credit on the PGA Tour but no wins. “I made a couple of long ones yesterday and then made a few more today that those had no right going in I feel like.”
Tom McKibbin was tied for 37th in two-under after a hard-fought 70 but Pádraig Harrington struggled to a 79 to miss the level par cut by eight strokes.
US golf, meanwhile, was in mourning following the death in Houston yesterday of Jack Burke Jr, the 1956 Masters and PGA champion, just 10 days before his 101st birthday.
At the LPGA Tour’s season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Leona Maguire shot a second successive level par 72 to share 26th in the clubhouse in the 35-strong field at Lake Nona.
Meanwhile, Belfast’s Damian McGrane opened with a one-under 71 to share ninth place in the race for five cards at the Final Stage of the 72-hole Legends Tour Qualifying School at Gloria Golf Club in Turkey.
