Enthralling finale beckons in Dubai
Star-studded trio of Molinari, Fleetwood, Rose headline the field in the European Tour’s season-ending showdown
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Molinari points, is compatriot second Italy’s while British leads with Justin England’s 3,684,755 the Open Rose race champion is Tommy with points in third 4,709,921 and Fleetwood Francesco spot his race with Nedbank Of 3,431,616. course, Challenge things could in South change Africa after today, the although Thus, the not focus dramatically will surely one be would on the think. top trio and a marquee flight it would be should they play together.
Molinari has a lead of a little more than one million and the quiet Italian will be fancied by more than just a few to close out his best season yet, in a pro career that began in 2004, in some style.
The unassuming Molinari has firmly established himself as global star and this week’s DP World Tour Championship will merely raise his stock further.
There is no telling what a win would do to his portfolio but one could hazard a guess that the player, who started the year 27th in the world rankings and has climbed to seventh since, will set his sights on becoming the very best there is around.
And there is nothing to suggest that he cannot accomplish it.
Fleetwood won the Race to Dubai last season after an outstanding year and continued his good form in this campaign.
He won the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and had seven other top-10 finishes on the Tour. Notably, four of those were in his last four tournaments, including the tie for seventh place in Turkey just last Sunday.
Like the two other primary contenders, Fleetwood, on his day can go low in the last round – when it matters most.
With his rock-star looks, Fleetwood is just as popular as the some of the other leading players and has the game to match it.
Given his will to win, the rest of the field could have a massive task on their hands as they bid to wrest the title from him.
The in-form Rose too will fancy his chances at Jumeirah.
His repeat triumph in the Turkish Airlines Open last Sunday propelled him to world number one for a second time this year and it came as no surprise.
He was third at the WGC-HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai a week earlier and had another top-10 in the event before that – the British Masters.
Rose spoke fondly of regaining the top ranking last Sunday and there is no doubt that it will have added immeasurably to his confidence.
The likable Englishman, US Open champion in 2013, Olympic gold medallist in 2016, a nine-time winner on the US PGA Tour and 12 on the European tour (three of them overlapping) knows what it takes to nail down the big ones and he will be more than primed for Dubai.
From an Asian perspective, it is most heartening to see Li Haotong in the mix.
The 23-year-old lad from Shanghai, China is ninth in the Race to Dubai standings and that comes after a campaign in which he won on the Tour for a second time.
He captured the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in January for his biggest career victory and in the process became the first player from China to breach the world’s top-50.
Ranked 42nd ahead of the DP World Tour Championship, Li will probably have more people watching and rooting for him on television this week than any of the other player in the field, including the Major championship winners.
Sweden’s Alex Noren (7th) and Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy (8th) are in the Race to Dubai top-10 and could also make their presence felt in the heat of the Middle East.
Both were on the winning European Ryder Cup team in France and would obviously like to end the season with a victory in Dubai.
Both have it in them to pull it off, but one wonders what the others are plotting, particularly the top trio of Molinari, Fleetwood and Rose.
Either way, the DP World Tour Championship should prove a compelling climax to an eventful European Tour season.