Form indeed was turned on its head as McIlroy, a four-time winner of the Desert Classic, a $9 million Rolex Series event on the DP World Tour, struggled to a round of one-over-par 73 which included a double-bogey seven on the 18th, his ninth, where his approach to a sucker pin at the front of the green spun back into the hazard.<\/p>\n
In fact, McIlroy\u2019s 73 for tied-61st was the worse score of the quartet of Irish players in the tournament. Shane Lowry<\/a> put the disappointment of allowing last week\u2019s Dubai Invitational to slip from his grasp by bouncing back with a solid opening round 70, while Tom McKibbin<\/a> \u2013 dipping back on to the European circuit from LIV \u2013 shot a 71 and P\u00e1draig Harrington<\/a> opened with a 72.<\/p>\n Lowry had double-bogeyed the 72nd hole of the Dubai Invitational at the Creek Club last Sunday to allow Spain\u2019s Nacho Elvira to claim that title, but the Offaly man rebounded with a solid opening round at the Emirates to claim a share of 12th when all the scorecards were submitted.<\/p>\n A round of five birdies and three bogeys enabled Lowry to get into the business part of the tournament from the get-go.<\/p>\n McKibbin, winner of the Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour last November and currently 75th on the world rankings, had three birdies and two bogeys in his 71 for tied-24th, while Harrington\u2019s 72 featured two birdies and two bogeys.<\/p>\n Molinari\u2019s fine 65 gave him a two-strokes lead over Sweden\u2019s Mikael Lindberg, who \u2013 at age 33 \u2013 is chasing his first tour win, while Switzerland\u2019s Joel Girrbach and South African JC Ritchie share third after posting 68s.<\/p>\n Nine players failed to complete the first round which was suspended due to fading light.<\/p>\n Molinari had only one top-10 on the DP World Tour last year (in the Nedbank Challenge), with his last win on the tour coming at Carnoustie in the 2018 Open Championship. His last win anywhere came in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour in 2019.<\/p>\n Molinari\u2019s round in some ways came out of the blue, but he explained: \u201cLast week I felt very rusty, so I was hoping it would be very good prep for this week. My putter was the biggest difference to be honest. Made some nice putts. Kept the round going in the middle where I played a couple of iffy holes and made some good pars.\u201d<\/p>\n He credited veteran coach Denis Pugh with getting him back on track: \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time. I\u2019ve changed everything and then I\u2019ve changed back. I\u2019m back working with Denis Pugh. That\u2019s been really nice. He doesn\u2019t travel to tournaments any more but I see him just a day a month at home, and he\u2019s always been great and sort of simplifying stuff for me and clearing stuff out of my mind that doesn\u2019t need to be there. And that\u2019s been the biggest help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francesco Molinari lived up to the old cliche of form being a temporary commodity and class being permanent,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6608,61,60,1394,1395,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-258631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dp-world-tour","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-rory-mcilroy","12":"tag-shane-lowry","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767177708414-69197743-5ee2-4403-b94c-9a36cd6b79cd.jpeg\"\/)
Is Ireland’s Six Nations squad ‘safe’?<\/p>\n![\"DUBAI,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SSDZ6YTNCY5RBGKU57BHSUMR2M.jpg\")
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – JANUARY 22: Shane Lowry of Ireland tees off on the eighth hole, during day one of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic 2026 at Emirates Golf Club on January 22, 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Andrew Redington\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n