It is the final week of the European Tour season as the leading 50 players in the Race to Dubai rankings head out to the middle-east for the finale of the campaign – the DP World Tour Championship where there is a lot of cash at stake.
Danny Willett coined it in nicely here last year and he has done enough to attempt to defend the title but he is up against it with the best that Europe has to offer looking to take the crown off him over the course of the four days.
Recent Winners
2018 – Danny Willett
2017 – Jon Rahm
2016 – Matthew Fitzpatrick
2015 – Rory McIlroy
2014 – Henrik Stenson
2013 – Henrik Stenson
2012 – Rory McIlroy
2011 – Alvaro Quiros
2010 – Robert Karlsson
2009 – Lee Westwood
The Course
We are back on the Earth Course at the Jumeirah Golf Estates this week, a track which is a par 72 that measures 7,677 yards and so it sounds like a bit of a monster but with the dry air and the humidity it doesn’t play to anything like that sort of number. Using those numbers you would think there is a need to give it a whack but the longer this course has been in place and bedded in the more the necessity is to hit greens in regulation.
This is a second shot golf course with the fairways very wide here. It isn’t the easiest track to scramble on and water is in play on five of the holes so an accuracy into the greens is a huge thing. A run of form on the dancefloors is no bad thing either in what can be a low scoring week. A player who can handle pressure is a good thing too as there is a huge amount of money on the line here.
The Field
The top 50 in the Race to Dubai rankings are in the field for this tournament. There are no invites and no wildcards so it is the best the European Tour has to offer that is here. Race to Dubai leader Bernd Wiesberger tees off in control of his own destiny while the winner of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Tommy Fleetwood will challenge him to be European number one. Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick can all be crowned European top dog but need help from those above.
Danny Willett will look to make a successful defence of his title while former champions Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Lee Westwood all tee it up as well. World stars such as Justin Rose, Louis Oosthuizen, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia are all here this week, as the winner of the opening event of the Final Series in the form of Tyrrell Hatton.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy is a warm order after a series of bets on him here. He has won this tournament twice but he is without regular bag carrier Harry Diamond, who has just become a father and has got the week off. That could be significant and unsettling and at 7/2 if you are backing McIlroy he has to win. That means little can go wrong against a top class field. Admittedly the course suits his game perfectly but I don’t like being in a must win position with the opponent having 49 runners against me.
Jon Rahm is the second favourite to land this tournament for the second time. He can still win the Race to Dubai title which is always something that puts me off backing a player as that can take priority as we saw with Justin Rose last year. He hasn’t played for seven weeks either which is another massive turn off for me especially at 13/2. The argument for backing him is his record in Europe. It is incredible but even he can be expected to be a little rusty here.
Tommy Fleetwood will open up the tournament as a 16/1 shot to win it. He has a couple of my no no’s against him here. Firstly he’s challenging for the Race to Dubai title and secondly he won last week. Both are my pet hates and it is rare I get involved in either circumstance. I’m not changing my stance this week either. He’s a little short for me in any road.
Patrick Reed and Justin Rose come next in the betting at 18/1. If Rose could convince me that he would putt well this week I may well take him but there is no guarantee of that. Reed has been in good form for a while and will be itching to find some form and maintain it with the Presidents Cup getting ever nearer. He just feels a little on the short side for me this week. It is 20/1 bar those named.
Main Bets
I’ll go with a couple of main bets this week. The first of them is a man who is often on fire around this time of year in Tyrrell Hatton. He won in Turkey a couple of weeks ago and has had enough time to digest that and get set to go again and this course and tournament should be right up his street. To be fair to Hatton, he had been tracking a victory but could not overcome a stone cold putter but there were no issues of that in Turkey where he didn’t just win but he held his nerve in a six-man play-off to land the crown. Golf tournaments can be like London buses for the very best and Hatton is one of those. Willett nearly won the Nedbank last season and won here and Rose won in Turkey two years ago and may well have won here. The late season double is on for Hatton who has form figures of 6-13-2-8-22 here.
Regular readers will have been writing a lot of the name Victor Perez on the bet slips in recent weeks and I’m going in again on the classy young Frenchman. This track, much like Turkey where he was in that play-off, suits him nicely and he’s in excellent form at the minute. His last five results have been 1-T57-T16-T4-T2 with a Rolex Series event and a WGC tournament mixed in there. The negative is this is his course debut but so has every other tournament been and he’s coped fine. The bottom line is he’s smacking the ball very cleanly and his putter is going well. If he stays out of trouble the Frenchman could steal the show.
Outsiders
Tom Lewis has a fantastic record in the desert and he’s another with a strong Turkey record as well so I think he is worth siding with at 66/1. Lewis is perfectly suited to desert golf. He drills it long and straight off the tee and in the main dials in a lot of good irons. When he is confident his putter works well too and those are all the ingredients for this place. Lewis finished seventh on debut here last year and comes in here with three top 15 finishes in his last four European efforts, no mean feat when he is flitting between the European and PGA Tour. Back in the desert earlier in the season he was T9 in Abu Dhabi and third in Saudi Arabia. He’s big at 66/1.
Although it isn’t strictly the middle-eastern desert, Guido Migliozzi won in Kenya earlier in the season which suggests that the dry air is no negative on his game. He has played the last three weeks with finishes of T14 in Portugal, T10 in Turkey and T21 last week so he isn’t in bad touch. The Italian is ninth in strokes gained on approach on the European Tour this season and that is a massive statistic this week. Clearly with those finishes I’ve just highlighted his short stick is working well enough and if he can keep the big numbers off the card, he is entitled to go well.
Tips
Back T.Hatton to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 21.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back him here:
Back V.Perez to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 56.00 with Bet365 (1/4 1-5)
Back T.Lewis to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Bet365 (1/4 1-5)
Back G.Migliozzi to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Bet365 (1/4 1-5)
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