when McIlroy ignored Reed on the driving range and the American responded by flicking a LIV Golf tee in his direction.<\/span><\/p>\nMcIlroy then explained why he had rejected Reed’s attempt to strike up a conversation. <\/span><\/p>\n“I was subpoenaed by his lawyer on Christmas Eve,” said the 33-year-old, who has been called as a witness in Reed’s defamation case against the PGA Tour among others. <\/span><\/p>\nIt set the tone for the week with fans keen to see McIlroy and Reed paired together at some point. But while that did not happen, the drama on the final day did not disappoint.<\/span><\/p>\nReed, who was in the penultimate group and started four shots behind McIlroy, quickly ate into that lead with three birdies in his opening six holes, while McIlroy was scrambling pars.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Northern Irishman then birdied the ninth, 10th and 13th to keep pace with Reed, who eagled the par-five 10th and picked up two more birdies on the 11th and 13th.<\/span><\/p>\nThey were level on 18 under after 14 holes, and McIlroy blinked first. He missed the green on the short 15th and failed to get up and down for par, dropping his first shot of the round.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, up ahead Reed had problems after a wayward drive on the par-four 16th. He chipped sideways out of trouble but took three more from there to drop his first shot of the day.<\/span><\/p>\nAnother errant drive on the par-four 17th cost Reed the chance of making a birdie and McIlroy moved one clear by almost driving the green and then two-putting from the front edge.<\/span><\/p>\nReed drew level with a birdie on the last, watched by McIlroy who was back down the fairway deliberating whether to take on the lake that protects the front of the green, after narrowly avoiding water with his drive.<\/span><\/p>\nMindful of the fact he had hit balls into the water both on Sunday and in the final round last year, McIlroy chose the safer option. He then hit a solid wedge shot in and let out a tremendous roar after holing the birdie putt.<\/span><\/p>\n“I was in two minds but with what happened yesterday and last year, I wanted to go wedge and give myself an opportunity,” he said, after claiming his third Dubai Desert Classic title.<\/span><\/p>\n“It was nice to be able to play the percentages and for it pay off. It’s a great start to the year.”<\/span><\/p>\nAustralia’s Lucas Herbert closed with a six-under 66 to finish third on 16 under.<\/span><\/p>\nEngland’s Ian Poulter, who also now plays on the LIV Golf circuit, had a good opportunity to join Herbert on that mark but dunked his third shot into the water on the par-five last, after laying up short of the lake with his second. That led to a scruffy double-bogey finish and 13 under overall. <\/span><\/p>\nSweden’s Henrik Stenson, who gave up the European Ryder Cup captaincy to join LIV Golf, hit the lowest round of the day, an eight-under 64 to climb to 12 under.<\/span><\/p>\nLegal proceedings to determine if 13 LIV players can continue to play on the European-based DP World Tour are scheduled to take place in London from 6 to 10 February.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Watch](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/onesport\/cps\/624\/cpsprodpb\/109DD\/production\/_127816086_iplayer_header_grey_8-1x.jpg\")
<\/span><\/span>![\"Watch](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/onesport\/cps\/624\/cpsprodpb\/E2CD\/production\/_127816085_iplayer_footer-1920x38-1x.jpg\")
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy previously won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2009 and 2015 -19 R McIlroy (NI); -18 P Reed (US); -16 L Herbert (Aus); -15 C Shinkwin (Eng) Selected: -13 T Pieters (Bel), I Poulter (Eng); -12 H Stenson (Swe), R Bland (Eng) Rory McIlroy emerged victorious after a tense tussle with Patrick Reed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5275,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5273\/revisions\/5275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}