Morikawa 1st American golfer to be No. 1 in Europe
British Open champion, Ryder Cup winner and now the first American to finish a season as the European Tour’s No. 1 player.
It’s been quite the year for Collin Morikawa.
The 24-year-old Californian demonstrated patience after a slow start and then world-class iron play down the stretch in making five birdies in his last seven holes to overhaul a fading Rory McIlroy and win the DP World Tour Championship with a final-round 6-under 66 on Sunday at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
With the three-shot victory, Morikawa also captured the Race to Dubai title as the leading points scorer on the European Tour in the 2021 season.
“It’s an honor to be the first American to do that, to put my name against many, many greats and Hall of Famers,” Morikawa said. “It’s special. I get touched up just talking about that.
“To close it out not just with a top 10 but to actually win … what a great way to finish.”
McIlroy, seeking back-toback titles after victory at the CJ Cup on the PGA Tour last month, started the final round with a onestroke lead — three clear of Morikawa — and his game seemingly in its best shape for some time.
Defending champion
Matt Fitzpatrick shot 66 to tie for second with Alexander Bjork (70).
Elsewhere: Facing high stakes against her toughest opponent, Jin Young Ko delivered a performance that was close to perfect to win the richest prize in women’s golf and overtake
Nelly Korda for LPGA Player of the Year. Ko opened with a 25-foot birdie putt and never
looked back in the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples. She shot 30 on the front nine and closed with the low round of the tournament at 9-under 63 for a one-shot victory of Nasa Hataoka of Japan. …Talor Gooch was playing too well to get fazed by anything in the final round of the RSM Classic at St. Simons Island, Georgia, and it paid off with his first PGA Tour title when he closed with a 6-under 64 for a three-shot victory at Sea Island. Mackenzie Hughes of Canada, who won the tournament in 2016, rallied from the group ahead of Gooch with four birdies among his last six holes, capped by a 20foot putt at No. 18 for a 62 to finish second at 19under 263.
ETC.
Auto racing: Lewis Hamilton inched closer to the Formula One championship lead with a dominating victory in the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix to earn back-to-back wins and chip away at Max Verstappen’s points advantage.
Hamilton, who also won last week in Brazil, has trimmed 11 points from Verstappen’s lead in the title race in seven days. Verstappen still holds an eight-point lead with two races remaining in one of the most dramatic F-1 title fights in at least a decade.
Tennis: Alexander Zverev showed off new, more aggressive, tactics in a dominant 6-4, 6-4 win over second-ranked Daniil Medvedev to lift the trophy at the ATP Finals at Turin, Italy, for the second time. A day after beating top-ranked Novak Djokovic over three sets in the semifinals, Zverev raised his game to a new dimension. Medvedev, the U.S. Open champion, won this event last year and had beaten Zverev five consecutive times.
Soccer: Serie A leader Napoli lost for the first time this season as Inter Milan reinvigorated its Italian title bid with a 3-2 win. Inter, the defending champion, cut the gap on Napoli and AC Milan to four points after 13 rounds and ended Napoli’s status as the last remaining unbeaten team across Europe’s five major leagues . ... Real Madrid kept its momentum from before the international break, cruising to a 4-1 win over 10-man Granada to reclaim first place in the Spanish league. Marco Asensio, Nacho Fernandez, Vinicius Junior and
Ferland Mendy all scored to give Madrid its fourth straight straight victory in all competitions.
Skiing: Petra Vlhova got the better of Mikaela Shiffrin for the second time in two days, winning another women’s World Cup slalom in Levi, Finland. The overall World Cup champion from Slovakia was .18 ahead after the first run and ultimately beat her American rival by .47 of a second.