Calling his six Race to Dubai wins “a huge achievement”, McIlroy was clearly keen to enjoy the moment and the fact that he has now tied the record of the late, great Seve Ballesteros. Only Colin Montgomerie’s eight wins are still to be surpassed.
One by one, in the wake of their opening rounds at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, leading European players lined up to verbalise their own attitudes regarding playing for pay or playing for pride.
Journeyman Paul Waring of England birdied the final two holes to fend off late challenges from Tyrrell Hatton and Rory McIlroy and win the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
McIlroy will equal the record of the late Seve Ballesteros should he pick up his sixth season-long title and trail only Colin Montgomerie’s eight Race to Dubai titles on the all-time list.
Exactly what was being said between the two main protagonists in their many private moments will remain something of a mystery. Neither man had anything to say publicly at the conclusion of their rounds.
It wasn’t the opening round they were hoping for, but the elder McIlroy did provide one of the early highlights of the tournament, chipping in from the rough on the seventh hole for a long par save.
[PHOTO: Ross Parker – SNS Group] Rory McIlroy wanted nothing to do with speaking to the written press on the eve of the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. But the Belfast lad did give a two-and-a-half-minute interview to BBC Northern Ireland on the subject of, you guessed it, the symbolism of the men Read more…
The two men who were the architects of the now infamous June 6 framework agreement from last year will be playing golf in the same grouping, in public, on television, on one of the most recognisable golf courses in the world.
Fittingly as things would later transpire, it was on the ninth tee in the final round of the BMW PGA Championship on Wentworth’s West Course that things started to go south for Matteo Manassero and north for the eventual champion, Billy Horschel.