All down to Earth as golfers arrive in Dubai
TOP 60 COMPETE FOR $8M PURSE, AS MOLINARI AND FLEETWOOD HUNT BIG PRIZE
The top 60 players on the European Tour converge for the 10th annual Race to Dubai season-ending DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates’ Earth Course from today to Sunday.
Race to Dubai leader Francesco Molinari can be stopped only by last year’s race winner Tommy Fleetwood but, with a gap of just over a million points between the pair, it would require Fleetwood to win the tournament and Molinari to finish below fifth in order for the Englishman to pip the Italian at the last event.
For the other 58 players unable to win the race, there’s still the prestige of an event win to play for and a slice of the $8 million (Dh29.38 million) prize pool, plus a further $5 million to be shared among the top 10 players in the Race to Dubai rankingsa at the close of play.
As well as last year’s race winner Fleetwood, the 2017 event winner Jon Rahm is also in the field looking to defend his title, as is Lee Westwood who won the first DP World Tour Championship and with it the Race to Dubai at this venue back in 2009.
Westwood will be buoyed by ending a four-year wait for victory on tour at last weekend’s
Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa and will now feel he can carry that rediscovered form into this week where he’s previously had so much success.
McIlroy in attendance
Record three-time Race to Dubai champion and joint record two-time DP World Tour Championship winner Rory McIlroy will also feature along with two-time race and event winner Henrik Stenson.
Justin Rose, who narrowly missed out on beating Fleetwood for the Race to Dubai title at this event last year, is one of three to be sitting out of the event with Paul Casey and Julian Suri.
Third in this year’s race, Rose still had a mathematical chance of overtaking Molinari, but would have needed to win while hoping the Italian finished outside the top 40.
Casey and Rose cited overscheduling for their withdrawals, while Suri pulled out of the Nedbank with a muscle injury and still isn’t fit.
The trio will be replaced in the top-60 by Hideto Tanihara, Matthew Southgate and Robert Rock, and Rose’s decision to skip leaves only Molinari and Fleetwood to contest for overall season honours.
More than half a million spectators have attended the event since 2009 with another 65,000 expected to descend on the venue over the course of the next four days. TV coverage of 1,845 hours shot by 138 crew will also be beamed into 486 million homes.
The Race to Dubai spans 47 tournaments in 30 countries across five continents and is a season-long competition to crown the European No. 1 based off the total prize earnings of each player over the course of the season.