Abu Dhabi provides Jordan Spieth with chance to renew rivalry with Rory McIlroy

The so-called rivalry, as it has been billed since Spieth’s major breakthrough at the Masters in April, has never really got going, never been allowed to reach full-throttle this year.

Jordan Spieth versus Rory McIlroy: that’ll do nicely, Abu Dhabi.

It is a little churlish to gloss over the inclusion of Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson in January’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, for they rank fifth and seventh in the world respectively, but the announcement that arguably the game’s two leading lights have chosen the UAE capital to resume rivalry was met with justifiable fanfare on Wednesday.

To be fair, that so-called rivalry, as it has been billed since Spieth’s major breakthrough at the Masters in April, has never really got going, never been allowed to reach full-throttle in the months since.

A quick synopsis: McIlroy was golf's Next Big Thing, then golf's Undisputed Big Thing, then usurped by Spieth, golf's Current Big Thing. A breakout 2015 sealed the young Texan's rise, lifted him to the summit and onto television shows and the cover of magazines, Sports Illustrated included.

Spieth had triumphed at June’s US Open, successive majors to call time on McIlroy’s reign. The “McIlroy Era” quickly became the “Spieth Era”. The king is dead. Long live the king.

The summer shoot-out, expected to continue some time into the distant future, never materialised once McIlroy ruptured ligaments in his left ankle. During the downtime, Spieth missed out on the play-off at The Open by one shot, where McIlroy should have been defending, before finishing runner-up at the US PGA Championship. McIlroy, returning to competition for the first time, came home tied-for 17th.

The two, now ranked No. 1 and No. 3, have since contested four events together, with each bettering the other twice. At last week’s WGC-HSBC Champions, Spieth finished tied-seventh to McIlroy’s tied-11th, although the Northern Irishman was initially handicapped by a bout of food poisoning.

In truth, there remains the sense that his month-long lay-off this summer set him back, allowed Spieth, Fowler and Jason Day to shine in his absence. Before his injury, McIlroy had won three times in 2015.

So onto Abu Dhabi, where Spieth and McIlroy next lock horns. It marks the beginning of their respective 2016 seasons, perhaps the beginning of that much-coveted, long-yearned-for rivalry, too. The “McIlroy-Spieth Era”. Both refreshed and refocused, both keyed in on the other and on the year ahead.

Fowler and Day will no doubt have something to say about that, and rightly so, but for four days in Abu Dhabi the golfing world will seem to spin on the Rory-Jordan axis.

McIlroy, with four runner-up finishes in his past five outings at the National Course, should view it as a chance to lay down a marker, to overcome Spieth at a track he knows all too well, and that Spieth does not. It is worth noting, though, that Spieth rocked up to Chambers Bay for the first time this year and did not exactly struggle.

If the event tagline is “Expected the Unexpected”, then Spieth versus McIlroy may run counter to that. Yes, Abu Dhabi, that’ll do nicely, indeed.​

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