DUBAI, United Arab Emirates \u2014\u00a0Rory McIlroy\u00a0posted a 5-under 66 to lead by one stroke after the first round of the Dubai Invitational on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Scotsman Connor Syme and Spaniard David Puig were tied behind the Northern Irishman in second place, and English golfer Matt Wallace dropped two shots back into a five-way tie for third after late struggles.<\/p>\n
Defending champion Tommy Fleetwood was three back in a tie for ninth in a large group including American Patrick Reed. He is among three players on the LIV Golf squad a year ago playing in Dubai.<\/p>\n
As the European tour resumed following five events at the end of 2025, McIlroy made a fast start with four birdies in the first five holes on the par-71 course at Dubai Creek Resort. The winner earns $458,333 in a total purse of $2.75 million.<\/p>\n
Wallace started his round with a bogey then made a neat chip from the edge of the green for an eagle on the fourth hole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He made five birdies before his momentum was halted by a bogey on No. 12. He lost his way and the lead after a double bogey on No. 16 and a bogey on the 18th.<\/p>\n
Fleetwood recovered from a double bogey and a bogey on the front nine by finishing his opening round with two birdies.<\/p>\n
The tournament is held every other year. Two years ago, Fleetwood benefited from two huge errors on the back nine from McIlroy to\u00a0win the tournament\u00a0following a back-and-forth final-round duel.<\/p>\n
Next week sees the Dubai Desert Classic, which McIlroy has won four times. He has also won the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai three times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates \u2014\u00a0Rory McIlroy\u00a0posted a 5-under 66 to lead by one stroke after the first round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-411637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}