By Admin 
Rory McIlroy will be the cynosure of all eyes when he tees off from the 10th hole at the historic Delhi Golf Club for the $4 million DP World India Championships here on Thursday morning.
The five-time Major champion headlines a field that includes Ryder Cup European teammates Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood, his captain Luke Donald and a host of world-class players including Viktor Hovland and Ben Griffin.
Of these, Fleetwood and Lowry are perhaps the only two who have been to India before – Fleetwood played at the Indian Open in 2016 and Lowry further back in 2010, when he played the Avantha Masters. Since then, both players have had a successful career and come into the week with not just the Ryder Cup trophy under their belts but also ranked fifth and 25th in the world.
However, it won’t be an easy outing for McIlroy on a course that some describe as ‘claustrophobic’ for its narrow lines with little scope for error. “I guess the immediate thing I’m hoping for right now is to play good first two days and at least be here for the weekend and hopefully enjoy the weekend after that,” McIlroy admitted on the eve of the event.
McIlroy has been teamed with Viktor Hovland and US Ryder Cup team member Ben Griffin to start from the 10th tee at 7.25 am while Lowry, Fleetwood and Donald will begin at 12.10 pm from the 1st.
In the mix will also be 26 Indians including Anirban Lahiri, Shiv Kapur and Shubhankar Sharma, golfers who have had a lot of experience on the course and hoping to ride the home advantage in their search for a DP World Tour title at home. Kapur, Lahiri and Sharma will all be in action early morning.
The DP World India Championship, the richest-ever professional golf event in India with a $4 million prize fund – for context, the Indian Open, the marquee event so far in the country, had a $2.25 million purse – will also have Indian youngsters Veer Ahlawat and Yuvraj Singh keen to impress.
The first tee off has been scheduled at 6.35 a.m with the last group at 1 pm and the way Delhi’s weather has been behaving, when you start could end up making a lot of difference to the final outcome.