The first full field tournament on the DP World Tour for 2025 is a Rolex Series event when plenty of star players head to the desert for the Dubai Desert Classic, one of the bigger competitions in this part of the world and an excellent opener to the year.
Rory McIlroy has enjoyed this tournament in the last couple of years because he has won it on both occasions and he is in the field looking to take it for a third straight year. A really good field is here looking to stop him though.
Recent Winners
2024 – Rory McIlroy
2023 – Rory McIlroy
2022 – Viktor Hovland
2021 – Paul Casey
2020 – Lucas Herbert
2019 – Bryson DeChambeau
2018 – Haotong Li
2017 – Sergio Garcia
2016 – Danny Willett
2015 – Rory McIlroy
The Course
It is once again the Majlis Course at the Emirates Golf Club which is the host course this week. In the main this course has held the tournament every year so the track is well known to the regulars at this event. The course is a par 72 which measures 7,353 yards although in the dry and humid air the course doesn’t play anywhere near that long. Often one defence of this course is the wind although the forecast doesn’t look too bad in that regard this week.
The rough was grown a little more here recently and it remains to be seen if that was an anomaly or the way this tournament is going to go now. Either way it isn’t going to be longer off the tee than before. Largely this will become a test of the short game whether around the greens or on them. This is a Rolex Series event so we can expect the cream to rise to the top on a course which allows that to happen.
The Field
We have a really good field assembled for the tournament this week including three members of the top 10 in the world rankings. They are Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood, while there is another seven players inside the top 50. Robert MacIntyre is one of those along with Tyrrell Hatton, who would be much higher if he wasn’t playing with LIV, Adam Scott, Akshay Bhatia, Jon Rahm, who like Hatton is lower than he should be, Rasmus Hojgaard and Thriston Lawrence.
There are another 10 players in the field ranked between 51-100 and some big names among them. They are Nicolai Hojgaard, Matt Wallace, Thorbjorn Olesen, Romain Langasque, Jordan Smith, Ryan Fox, Niklas Norgaard, Paul Waring and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. Some other famous names in the field include Patrick Reed, Thomas Pieters, Adrian Meronk, Bernd Wiesberger and Dean Burmester. John Parry, Laurie Canter and Guido Migliozzi are some of many DP World Tour event winners in the field.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy is no stranger to winning this tournament having done it on four previous occasions and he is the 4/1 favourite to win it again. He comes here fresh having not played in 2025 and that isn’t necessarily a negative as we have seen here in the past. I don’t think anyone would be massively surprised if McIlroy pitches up and wins this but he’s plenty short enough having not teed it up recently. I can’t back him at the price but I readily accept he is unlikely to not fill one of the places at worst.
Jon Rahm had a brilliant second half of 2024 and given that he is getting into these events only by appealing his punishment for going to LIV without permission, he will probably be keen to go well in the DP World Tour tournaments he does play. They carry extra meaning for him as he needs the world ranking points and the Ryder Cup points that comes with this event. He is usually operating in California at this time of year though and others who are regulars here might have a bit of an advantage. At a best price of 11/2 Rahm isn’t for me.
Tyrrell Hatton comes next in the betting at 9/1. He is in the same boat as Rahm in that he needs the world ranking points and the Ryder Cup points and won’t get a huge amount of chances to get them. Hatton has three top four finishes around here without winning the title but unlike the two above him in the betting he has shaken off the early season rust with a weekend at the Team Cup last week where he went well enough. I prefer others though.
Tommy Fleetwood is a 12/1 shot to win the tournament this week. He is another who got rid of any rust that might have built up at the Team Cup last week but if you were thinking about backing him to win this event you would need to ignore a record which has seen him have just two top 10 finishes in 13 attempts here and never having come any better than sixth. He is the third highest ranked player in the field but there seems to be something about this course he doesn’t like.
Main Bets
I’ll go with a couple of main bets this week with the first of them being Adam Scott who had a bit of a resurgence in 2024. He played in seven DP World Tour events outside of the majors last year and he finished in the top 10 in five of them including a T7 here. That was his second top 10 in his last two visits to this tournament so we know that the course offers no issues and he is still good enough to compete, especially at this level. He was second in a Rolex Series event in the Scottish Open last year and third in the DP World Tour Championship. There is no reason why he can’t go a bit better here.
Laurie Canter is my other main bet this week. I think this is a big year for him with him being on the radar for the Ryder Cup team and the fact that he offered up a good showing at the Team Cup last week will have done him no harm in that regard. Canter was fourth here in 2021 and he won for the first time on the DP World Tour last season so he is a different golfer on arrival this time around. He can kick off a big 2025 for him with a big week here.
Outsiders
I’ll go for a couple of LIV Golf players for my outsider picks this week because as I’ve mentioned above they all need ranking points and Ryder Cup points and Thomas Pieters is the first player I like. He has gone T12-T6 in the last two attempts here and he has won in the desert before in Abu Dhabi. He finished his 2024 off with a positive showing in the Saudi International which isn’t a million miles away from the conditions he is going to find here. Pieters hits it hard and generally has a decent short game and he could be dangerous here.
Adrian Meronk is the other one I’ll take. He has a decent record around here having finished second here last year. That was one of just three goes he has had at this tournament and he was fourth in one of the other two so there is something about the Emirates Golf Club that takes his eye. Meronk probably didn’t have the debut season he would have wanted with LIV Golf but he was one away from making the Ryder Cup team two years ago and it might be that he doesn’t have enough opportunities to make it this time around but the ones he gets you know he’ll be going heavy at and this is one. I’ll pay to see how well he goes.
Tips
Back A.Scott to win Dubai Desert Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-7)
Back L.Canter to win Dubai Desert Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-7)
Back T.Pieters to win Dubai Desert Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back A.Meronk to win Dubai Desert Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
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