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DP World Tour Championship preview and betting tips from Ben Coley
It's the final event of the European Tour season and Ben Coley has just one selection for the DP World Tour Championship.
Recommended bets
6pts e.w. Rory McIlroy at 10/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
There's no reason to waste too much of your time when it comes to this week's DP World Tour Championship: the only bet I'm interested in is Rory McIlroy, each-way, at double-figure prices. Take six places if you can, five if you can't.
The case for McIlroy isn't without negatives, chief among them the fact that in two starts since the Ryder Cup, where he was not at his best, he has been poor. His laboured effort in the WGC-HSBC Champions is particularly hard to forgive because he'd simply never failed to perform there previously.
But every player has their price and it's my firm belief that McIlroy is far too big here, at one of his favourite courses in the world, one which, unlike Sheshan, he's won at twice before. Remember there is no Justin Rose, with only Francesco Molinari ranked higher in the world.
McIlroy has played the Earth Course eight times previously and as well as winning twice, he's never been worse than 11th. His last visit, in 2017, saw him card his first and only over-par round, from which he responded by climbing from 55th of 60 players after day one to ninth at the conclusion, out-scoring the winner but for Thursday. In total he's registered 31 rounds of par or better in 32. His scoring average is a superb 68.2.
McIlroy is arguably at his most effective in Dubai, whether here or at the Emirates Golf Club, where he's also won the Dubai Desert Classic twice. Since his breakthrough win there in 2009, McIlroy has played 16 events in the City of Gold and he's won four. He's also been inside the top-six on eight other occasions. Betting to six places, only four times has he failed to generate some kind of payout. Blind followers are in significant profit, and he's rightly gone off as short as 3/1.
Now, it's possible to register all that information yet still conclude that McIlroy is not playing well enough to win, or simply isn't a big enough price to chance. Fair enough. My job isn't to convince you to have a bet and if you strongly disagree with any of my analysis you should back somebody else or leave the event alone.
To those on the fence, however, I'd say that McIlroy's previous victory this season came under similar circumstances. He'd played poorly four events running on the PGA Tour but, met with a course which suited him better, sprang to life. In fact all of his best form in a low-key campaign has been after disappointment: he was second at Wentworth after missing the cut at Sawgrass and second in the Open after a quiet run, including a missed cut at the US Open.
China was an extremely poor effort, but it was his first stroke play start since a promising end to the PGA Tour season followed by a fairly low-key Ryder Cup and he lost interest after his chance had gone. There is always the risk something similar happens here. There were, though, some positives at Sun City, where McIlroy's lack of course experience was a big concern beforehand and where his caddie must have been a negative, too.
Lee Westwood managed to win with his partner on the bag, but Westwood knows Sun City like the back of his hand and had won there twice before. McIlroy's only prior visit resulted in a withdrawal very early in his career and, almost a decade later, he simply didn't have the right set of circumstances when it comes to producing his devastating best. I'm not one who believes Harry Diamond is costing him majors - I have no way of knowing - but I do believe McIlroy when he says they were both caught out by kikuyu lies and altitude in South Africa.
Here in Dubai, where he knows every line and every break, McIlroy has everything in his favour and it simply becomes a question of whether his game is close enough to where it needs to be for him to score. There is no way to be certain on that, but I was quite taken with McIlroy's self-assessment on Sunday.
"On the golf course, I feel like the seven at the third sort of summed up the week," he said after a final-round 71 despite that triple-bogey early on.
"It was a good shot but I had a flyer out of the rough and then at altitude it's so hard to control. The margin for error on this golf course is so small.
"If you get it off-line you're in a bush, and then I start messing around in the bushes and end up taking seven."
The margin for error is much wider in Dubai and, well, I could easily have just made the following quote my entire preview.
"There are signs of good stuff in there. It's the same as China a couple weeks ago. There's signs of good stuff. There's just a lot of mistakes. But again, I'm going to a golf course next week that I've had so much success on.
"If there's any golf course or any place in the world where I can get a bit of confidence from, it's Dubai. I've won there (Dubai) four times and I've won there (the course) twice, and I'm very familiar with the place. Looking forward to it."
And that's that. McIlroy could bomb out and end a frustrating year on a low note, there's no doubt about that. But if he plays close to his best, he'll finish in the frame, probably at the top of the tree, and I think the prospect of that happening is vastly greater than 10 or 11/1 implies.
Over to you, Rory.
Posted at 1655 GMT on 12/11/18.