Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood head the betting for the Dubai Invitational, where Ben Coley has two each-way selections against them.
- 3/1 McIlroy heads the betting on return
- Fleetwood beat him here two years ago
- In-form Schaper goes for DPWT hat-trick
Golf betting tips: Dubai Invitational
3pts e.w. Thorbjorn Olesen at 25/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5)
1.5pts e.w. Matt Wallace at 33/1 (bet365 1/4 1,2,3,4,5 - General 1/5)
When the Abu Dhabi Championship used to mark the beginning of the DP World Tour season rather than play its part in the end of it, Rory McIlroy endured a succession of near-misses, finding all kinds of ways to do everything but get his hands on the trophy.
From memory, there was the time he brushed away sand from the fringe which he wasn't allowed to do, another when he failed to take full relief from ground under repair. Both resulted in penalty strokes which potentially cost him a winning start to the year.
Mental and physical rust? Maybe, on what was often his first start in more than a month. Maybe it's just a quirk of the form book, or maybe it emphasises that of the Middle East courses he's played, Emirates GC is his favourite. McIlroy has won just once on his seasonal return and that came the one and only time he began in the Dubai Desert Classic, rather than somewhere else the week before.
He'll take some beating back there next week, but before then it's a second crack at this event, brand new in 2024 when he somehow made it six runner-up finishes in 17 January reappearances and this time without a clumsy rule book infringement. First, McIlroy made a quadruple bogey when cruising in round two, and then a loose drive at the 72nd hole when one ahead allowed Tommy Fleetwood to pick his pocket.
McIlroy's hook off the tee on that final hole of the tournament, which led to a bogey, returns us to the idea that he's perhaps somewhat vulnerable when returning from the Christmas break. Then again, you could so easily spin it another way. In what's now a collection of 18 seasonal returns, he has a quite ridiculous 14 top-five finishes. Vulnerability comes in different forms, I suppose, and he seems to sure to play well once more.
Having put him up at 3/1 for that tournament, led by price rather than any strong view on a course which hadn't been used in a long time, I'm less tempted by McIlroy than I was then. What we learned about Dubai Creek is that versus most in the region it is short and straightforward; wind, water and fast greens the main defences. It's not somewhere players can really overpower and is probably more about wedges and putting, two things Fleetwood did spectacularly on the final two holes.
Fleetwood had sharpened those facets of the game a week earlier but this time, everyone is back from the Christmas break. Well, unless you count the TGL. McIlroy has featured in that since we last saw him in Australia, when he played deeper into December than he often has, so perhaps now he's better prepared. Fleetwood skipped TGL duties but with Dubai now home, he ought to have no excuses on that score.
With a pro-am format and a cast-iron guarantee that for some players in this field, Monday will have been the first time they've touched a club in weeks, there's got to be an element of caution advised. The same is true with the one hidden clue I've found, and that's a potential link to Le Golf National. They're not aesthetically alike but there is one similar feature, this idea that you plot from A to B and have to avoid position Z; driver isn't really the path to conquering either, so while they're different in any number of ways, they're potentially more similar than they seem.
For now all we can say with certainty is that among the contenders here in 2024 were past Le Golf National champion Tommy Fleetwood (1st) and 5-0-0 Ryder Cup record-breaker Francesco Molinari (5th). In fourth was Jordan Smith, a former runner-up in Paris just like Thorbjorn Olesen and Yannik Paul, who tied for eighth. In 11th was Rasmus Hojgaard and in 13th was Guido Migliozzi, who have battled each other for the Open de France title. Alongside Hojgaard in Dubai was Ewen Ferguson, 10th when 54-hole leader in France.
You can add Joost Luiten (14th here, ninth France), Ryan Fox (14th, sixth), Adrian Otaegui (20th, seventh), Pablo Larrazabal (20th, first), Jeff Winther (25th, second) and Dan Bradbury (30th, first) for what on the face of it is a really strong correlation, largely made up of quality iron players. The caveat is that this is based on one edition of the Dubai Invitational, where the formula in the end was far simpler: the best players dominated.
THORBJORN OLESEN is certainly among the best of the rest and he looks particularly well suited to this assignment, as demonstrated when eighth two years ago.
That performance came courtesy of quality iron play and putting, Olesen's two main strengths when firing, and for the most part they've been on display over the past six months, particularly during a run of seven top-20s in nine starts which effectively secured PGA Tour membership.
It's interesting that he's here rather than over at the Sony Open, which probably speaks to the fact that, like Fleetwood, he's a Dubai resident who has always been comfortable in the Middle East. We saw that when he ran away with the Ras al Khaimah weeks after playing here two years ago, while he's also bagged top-fives at two courses in Abu Dhabi, plus in the Dubai Desert Classic and Qatar Masters.
Only the Earth Course, home of the DP World Tour Championship, has proven not completely suitable and maybe that's to do with driver sometimes being a weakness, which I'd be far less concerned about here. Providing he's playing from the fairway often enough, the Dane can take aim and fire, his putter as likely as just about anyone's to fire him into contention.
In terms of more recent form I felt 28th in the Nedbank was fine given that he was exhausted after what he called a 'tough, long six weeks' battling for that PGA Tour card, which he'd sealed before missing the cut in the RSM Classic. In the weeks prior to that he'd been third in Utah, where low-scoring conditions definitely suited, and his DP World Tour form before South Africa read 16-20-9.
Capable of serving it up to his former Ryder Cup teammates at the top of the betting, Olesen's debut in that event having come at a course he loves in Le Golf National, I rate him their biggest threat bar perhaps Shane Lowry. But while I do feel Lowry could well go on and win soon following his Ryder Cup heroics, his form since then most encouraging, I'd still worry slightly about his putter cooling off.
Olesen is generally to be relied upon with that club and having spent Christmas in Dubai, he ought to be ready to go.
It's that sense of what you need to do well here which steers me away from some of the form players like David Puig, supreme off the tee, and fellow big-hitters Tom McKibbin, Angel Ayora and Nicolai Hojgaard, which isn't to say they can't or won't contend, simply that their biggest asset can't be fully unleashed.
I'd worry too that the exceptional Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen will find conditions easier than ideal, evidenced by his gutsy grind to win the Australian Open last month, so it's almost by process of elimination that I reach MATT WALLACE.
Wallace looked like winning the European Masters for us for the second year running back in the autumn but came up just short, at a time when every ounce of mental and physical energy was going into making the European Ryder Cup side.
His dream of playing for Europe remains exactly that and I imagine it somewhat explains a poor end to the year, with 10th in Japan the only bright spot amid a run of three missed cuts and three other humdrum finishes, concluding in the RSM Classic.
But Wallace did at least start to dial in his irons there, always the key part of his game, and as someone whose putter is less reliable than it was but still deadly on its day, he too has the right kind of skill profile for this anomaly of a Middle East course.
Wallace has played well across the region, finishing runner-up four times in the other three Dubai events and third in Abu Dhabi, so I'm hopeful he'll find this place to his liking having not taken part two years ago.
Yes, that's a potential disadvantage but as with Le Golf National, the task here is laid out in front of players and it's one Wallace is very well suited to on paper, so with that Ryder Cup heartache behind him it seems like a great place to begin an interesting year for the Englishman.
He currently only has conditional PGA Tour status, his exemption for winning the Corales Puntacana having expired, but will get plenty of starts in the US. However, he really needs a solid base in Europe from which to attack that mission and, if the putter fires, he can start to build one here.
Among those at bigger prices, Martin Couvra improved when free from his own distraction, that being the lure of PGA Tour membership, and ended his rookie season with a top-10 finish in Johannesburg. That came about courtesy of a return to his best iron play, the hallmark of a brilliant spring, and more of the same could make him a potential candidate.
His compatriot Antoine Rozner is a class act, a two-time winner in the desert (a style of golf he became familiar with in college, twice winning the Desert Shootout), has been 11th in his homeland and putted better towards the end of the year. I wouldn't say he wants a birdie-fest necessarily but that breakthrough win came in 25-under at the Golf in Dubai Championship and he's respected on ability.
Bradbury's Le Golf National win, high-class approach work and hints of putting improvement made him of some interest, but the one I and I'm sure many others spent longest on was Andy Sullivan. He's bang in-form, he's the definition of an approach-play-plus-putting golfer, he loves low-scoring conditions, and he's been out in Dubai this winter.
Sullivan produced some of his best golf in ages towards the back-end of 2025 and has Le Golf National form too, but his four wins over the past 11 years have all come in considerably weaker fields. He's the type of player I'd have wanted to be with each-way at 66s, but not at 40/1 and shortening all the time when the likes of McIlroy and Fleetwood are in town.
Posted at 19:00 GMT on 12/01/26
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