The dispersion of the occupied molecular orbitals of carbon monoxide adsorbed on Au 2D islands, vapordeposited on graphene/Ru(0 0 0 1), is seen to be wave vector dependent, as revealed by angle-resolved photoemission. The band dispersion is similar to CO monolayers adsorbed on many single crystal metal surfaces. Thus not only are the adsorbed gold islands on graphene flat and crystalline, as evident in the dispersion of the Au d-states, but the CO molecular adlayer is both molecular and ordered as well. The experimental angle-resolved photoemission combined with model calculations of the occupied CO band structure, suggest that, in spite of being a very weakly bound adsorbate, the CO adlayer on Au 2D islands on graphene is strongly hybridized to the Au layer. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.