Leader respects but doesn’t fear rival
Tommy Fleetwood says he respects Justin Rose but isn’t intimidated by him, heading into this weekend’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship, where the pair are battling it out for the Race to Dubai title.
Fleetwood leads Rose by just over 250,000 points and will need to equal or better Rose’s finish in Dubai to win the overall European Tour’s Order of Merit, for the first time in his career.
Meanwhile Rose, who won this honour with victory in the final event back in 2007, needs to finish no worse than solo fifth to stand a chance of overtaking Fleetwood at Jumeirah Golf Estates from Thursday, for his second title.
“It’s not intimidating or stressful in any way,” said Fleetwood, 26, of having his older adversary, Rose, 37, breathing down his neck.
“Nervous is the right word, but it’s the good kind of nerves, where you’re trying to win the Race to Dubai. It’s by no means a burden or in any way stressful.
“Whatever happens, I’ve never done this before, and it will have been a brilliant experience no matter what. I obviously clearly want to win. You don’t know how many chances you’re going to get in your career to do it.
“I’d love to add my name to that list. It will be a perfect way to end a year that’s been amazing for me. It would mean a lot.”
That said, he admitted it would be hard not to look over his shoulder this week at the 2013 US Open winner, who has twice finished second here in 2012 and 2014, and been beaten in the Race to Dubai with second, two thirds and a fourth-place finish from 2012 to 2015, respectively.
“There’s absolutely no way to avoid it. I think I’m clearly going to see what he [Rose] is doing.” Henrik Stenson, Sweden, 5,289,506 Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland, 4,727,253 Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland, 7,149,503 Henrik Stenson, Sweden, 4,103,796 Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland, 5,519,118 Luke Donald, England, 5,323,400 Martin Kaymer, Germany, 4,461,011 Lee Westwood, England, 4,237,762 Tommy Fleetwood needs to equal or better Justin Rose’s finishing position to beat Rose in the Race to Dubai. So long as Rose doesn’t finish in the top five and Garcia doesn’t win, Fleetwood will be crowned European No. 1.
Chances of that happening: 73 per cent.
Rose is currently 256,737 points behind Fleetwood in the Race to Dubai and therefore needs to finish no worse than solo fifth in order to have any chance of winning the season-long title. As long as Fleetwood doesn’t win, a solo second place finish for Rose would be enough to secure his second title.
Chances of that happening: 24 per cent.
ith momentum on his side and good past form in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship Justin Rose has a real chance of overtaking Tommy Fleetwood at the Race to Dubai’s last hurdle this weekend.
The 37-year-old 2013 US Open-winning Englishman has also done it before, memorably winning the final event of the 2007 season in a play-off at the Volvo Masters at Valderrama, to overtake Ernie Els to become Order of Merit champion for the first time.
He comes into this event fresh off the back of two consecutive wins at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai and the Turkish Airlines Open in Antalya, before sitting out last week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City to rest.
With those back-to-back wins in hand, Rose is now just more than 250,000 points behind Fleetwood, who doesn’t have the same record in this tournament, isn’t as well rested having played in the Nedbank where he finished tied for 10th, and only averaged tied for 20th finishes in the two previous events that Rose won in China and Turkey.
Fleetwood only needs to equal or better Rose’s finishing position in Dubai to take the overall season’s prize, whereas Rose must finish no worse than solo fifth. So long as Fleetwood doesn’t win, a solo second place finish would be enough for Rose to nick his second Order of Merit.
Looking at past form in this event, Rose is also more comfortably poised. He’s twice finished second here in 2012 and 2014, with three top 10s in five appearances, and has tellingly also been here before in the money list coming into the last event.
He finished second in the Race to Dubai in 2012, third in both 2013 and 2014 and fourth in 2015. If anyone has the experience of being in this position at this stage of the season, while also knowing what it takes to do well over the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates, it’s him. And it’s about time he finally got over the line.
Fellow Englishman Fleetwood, 26, by comparison has never been this high up in the Race to Dubai, and only has one top 10 finish here in four appearances, which was a ninth place finish last year.
The European Tour’s numbercrunchers have put the probability of Fleetwood succeeding at 73 per cent, with Rose at 24 per cent. But when you take the above evidence into account, you’d be inclined to give Rose more credit.
Masters champion Garcia is the third name in this equation who, placed a million points behind Fleetwood and 800,000 behind Rose, officially only has a three per cent chance of causing an upset.
Firm favourites
The 37-year-old Spaniard would need to win and hope Fleetwood finishes outside the top 20, and Rose finishes worse than solo fourth, to pull off one of the greatest final event comebacks in Race to Dubai history.
Like Rose, Garcia has some form in this event, having finished inside the top 25 in all six of his appearances here — his best