Rory McIlroy’s victory at Augusta National brought him level with Nick Faldo on six major titles, meaning no European golfer has more of the game’s most-prized assets, but he still trails Colin Montgomerie in terms of Harry Vardon Trophy wins, handed out to leading player on the DP World Tour Order of Merit.
Patrick Reed giving up his LIV Golf contract to compete primarily on the DP World Tour in 2026 in the wake of his victory at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic provided one of the big headlines of the early golfing calendar, and when he followed up with a win in Qatar and a runner-up finish in Bahrain, it set us up for a likely McIlroy-Reed duel for the Race to Dubai crown this year, provided the Irishman put in a strong major championship showing.
And his Masters win got him off to the perfect start. McIlroy rose 47 places in the Race to Dubai Rankings and moved into second place, though he still trails Reed by 500 points as the American’s 151.5 points for a T12 finish at Augusta National moved him to 2,491.92 while McIlroy, despite the maximum 1665-point haul, sit on 1,934.20.
Besides the PGA Championship and U.S. Open, McIlroy’s next likely DP World Tour start will come at the Genesis Scottish Open, the week before the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, though it’s unclear how many DP World Tour events Reed will play in the intervening period. The 2018 Masters champion has not entered the Volvo China Open which takes place from April 23-26, and only the Turkish Airlines Open and the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship lie between it and the PGA Championship at Aronimink.
McIlroy’s traditional schedule will see him return to Europe for the Amgen Irish Open at Doonbeg, a fortnight after the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship, before heading across the Irish Sea to Wentworth for the DP World Tour’s Flagship event.
While the animosity between the pair peaked at the Dubai Desert Classic in 2023 when McIlroy ignored Reed on the practice range, then revealed that he’d been subpoenaed by Reed’s legal team on Christmas Eve just a month before, before going on to birdie the final hole to beat Reed by one, it’s hard to imagine that both players aren’t extremely keen on claiming that top spot at the conclusion of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in November. Particularly if it means denying the other.
McIlroy needs just one more to tie Monty’s eight, while Reed, who is eligible to return to the PGA Tour on sponsors invitations during the FedEx Fall Series, will view it as an opportunity to return as a full PGA Tour member and with Signature Event and Players Championship exemptions to boot should he finish as the top-ranked player not otherwise exempt.
It will be one of the more intriguing subplots as the season wears on.
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