The game’s top-two ranked golfers along with the defending Abu Dhabi HSBC champion will play alongside each other for the first two rounds of this year’s event.

Rory McIlroy will be joined by now fellow Nike staff player Tiger Woods along with England’s Justin Rose in the opening event on the 2013 Race to Dubai Desert Swing.

It will be the first occasion McIlroy and Woods have competed alongside each other since last October’s Duel at Lake Jinsha in north-central China.

Rose was brilliant runner-up last year to McIlroy in the season-ending  DP World Tour Championship won by McIlroy when he produced five one-putt birdies over the closing five holes.