Five Things to Know: Dubai Invitational 

The DP World Tour resumes its 2024 season with the first event of a five-week stretch in the Middle East as the inaugural Dubai Invitational marks the start of the International Swing. Here are your five things to know.

New Year. New Event.

After a three-week break over the festive period, the DP World Tour kicks back into gear with a brand-new tournament.

The Dubai Invitational is a four-day event which sees a 72-hole strokeplay tournament played concurrently with a three-day Pro-Am team event, with Sunday featuring professionals only.

Dubai Creek Resort, a European Tour Destinations venue, welcomes a field of 60 professional DP World Tour golfers and 60 amateur golfers for the first event on the International Swing.

There are 3,000 Race to Dubai points on offer to the professional field, with players competing for a $2.5 million prize fund with the winner earning $425,000.

The team competition will be played in teams of one amateur and one professional, with the team score the aggregate of the lower of the two team members score on each hole over three rounds. For the third round, the leading amateur in the team competition will be paired with the leading professional of the individual professional competition and so on.

The tournament will be played bi-annually in 2024, 2026 and 2028.

Start of the International Swing

The Dubai Invitational is the seventh event of the 2024 season and marks the third of five continents the DP World Tour is visiting, underlining its status as golf’s global Tour.

As part of a new look to the schedule, the Race to Dubai features three new and distinct phases, with the International Swing acting as the second of five Global Swings running through to August.

Immediately following the Opening Swing, the International Swing begins with two Dubai events - the Dubai Invitational (Jan 11-14) and Hero Dubai Desert Classic (Jan 18-21), and is followed by the Ras Al Khaimah Championship (Jan 25-28), the Bahrain Championship (Feb 1-4), the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (Feb 8-11), the Magical Kenya Open (Feb 22-25), and two final South African events - the SDC Championship (Feb 29 - 3 March), and the Jonsson Workwear Open (Mar 7-10).

As with the other four swings, each champion will earn $200,000 from an over, all $1million Bonus Pool while they will also qualify for the next scheduled Rolex Series event – in this case the Genesis Scottish Open – and each of the ‘Back 9’ events which form the second phase of the season.

Due to the smaller field size this week, the incentive to make a fast start to the year is clear.

Full 2024 Schedule

Field in focus

The headline act in Dubai this week is World Number Two Rory McIlroy, but he is far from the only stellar name teeing it up.

The four-time Major Champion returns to action for the first time since he signed off 2023 as the reigning European Number One, having claimed the season-long Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex for a fifth time.

The Northern Irishman will be joined in Dubai by his Ryder Cup-winning teammates Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Højgaard, who won his maiden Rolex Series title on his most recent visit to Dubai at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.

The Ryder Cup theme continues with the participation of Luke Donald, who was recently announced as Europe’s first repeat Captain since Bernard Gallacher performed the role in 1991, 1993 and 1995.

They are joined by four-time DP World Tour winners Ryan Fox and Adrian Meronk, who will both be looking to build on the momentum generated from impressive campaigns in 2023.

Daniel Hillier and fellow 2022 Challenge Tour graduates Tom McKibbin, Matt Baldwin and Todd Clements, who all won on the DP World Tour for the first time last year, are also in a field which includes European great Thomas Bjørn.

The Venue

Having opened in 1993, Dubai Creek Resort is Dubai's second oldest course after Emirates Golf Club, host venue to next week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.

This isn’t the first time the venue has hosted a DP World Tour event, having previously held the Dubai Desert Classic in 1999 and 2000.

Between 2003 and 2007, the course underwent a redesign led by European Golf Design and advised by Bjørn.

One of the most recognised courses in the Emirate, the venue boasts a distinctive sail-shaped clubhouse and several eye-catching holes.

The tee box at the par four sixth is on stilts within the Creek, where the tee shot requires precision to find the fairway from an elevated platform.

But it is perhaps the 17th and 18th which will provide for the most drama during the week, with the creek guarding the entire left side of the fairway at the final two par four holes.

Spell in the desert

Since the DP World Tour began playing events in this part of the world over 30 years ago, golf in the Middle East has evolved into one of the most anticipated spells of the season.

Following this week's stop, action will continue in Dubai with the 35th anniversary edition of the Dubai Desert Classic, the first Rolex Series event of the year.

Then focus switches to the nearby Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah as Daniel Gavins - in action this week - defends his Ras Al Khaimah Championship title.

That is followed by the Tour's return to Bahrain for the first time in 13 years at the start of February, followed by the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at Doha Golf Club from February 8-11.

It promises to be an exciting and dramatic run of events.