The DP World Tour play-offs begin this week when the penultimate event of the season takes place when the Abu Dhabi Championship is played out with the top 70 on the Race to Dubai rankings and a few invited players competing for a huge prize.
Paul Waring pulled off a major shock to win this tournament a year ago but a year of injuries and issues mean that he won’t be around to make a defence of the title so we are guaranteed a different winner of the Rolex Series event.
Recent Winners
2024 – Paul Waring
2023 – Victor Perez
2022 – Thomas Pieters
2021 – Tyrrell Hatton
2020 – Lee Westwood
2019 – Shane Lowry
2018 – Tommy Fleetwood
2017 – Tommy Fleetwood
2016 – Rickie Fowler
2015 – Gary Stal
The Course
We are at the Yas Links Club in Abu Dhabi this week. This is now the fourth time that the tournament has been held here and although there is a links feel to it as the name would suggest, the winners so far have been big hitters who can get streaky with the putter which might be significant. The track is a par 72 which measures 7,425 yards but you have to consider that the dry air and firmness of the track will ensure that the course doesn’t play to a full yardage.
The course is a links track but unlike what you would see in Scotland the breeze isn’t as regular and as such we are looking at a low scoring week here. There is freedom to get it out there off the tee and the greens are fairly receptive. The only snag for players if the wind doesn’t blow is the undulations on the contours of the fairways. Water is in play on a few holes but long game specialists who have a decent putter are likely to shine here.
The Field
As you would expect with a tournament of this profile, we have a very strong field teeing it up this week. We have three of the top 10 in the world rankings and another two from the top 20. The top 10 players in the field this week are the Ryder Cup trio of Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Robert MacIntyre while Ludvig Aberg and Alex Noren are in the top 20. Four other members of the winning European Ryder Cup team are in the field too in Shane Lowry, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton and Rasmus Hojgaard.
We have another quartet of players in the top 50 in the world rankings here including the man who sits number two on the Race to Dubai list in Marco Penge. Patrick Reed, Michael Kim and Aaron Rai are the other three top 50 players. It is largely about the Race to Dubai from here on in though and Kristoffer Reitan and Adrien Saddier, fourth and fifth on that points list beginning the week, will both look to make a move while John Parry, Laurie Canter and Haotong Li will aim to improve their top 10 position.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy has a whole bunch of top three finishes in this tournament but it is a trophy he is still trying to get his hands on for the first time. He is the 7/1 favourite to finally win the event this week and that feels like a big price for an each bet when if you bet to five places he would have secured a profit in 10 of his 13 appearances in the event. He is definitely the man to beat and should be bang in the frame but whether he finds another player or two too good remains to be seen.
Tommy Fleetwood is the second favourite this week. He comes here off the back of winning the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour back in August, playing a huge part in Europe winning the Ryder Cup in September and then winning the India Championship last month so he is very much in form and will undoubtedly be popular here at 15/2. He has won this tournament on a couple of occasions but not on this course but he is another who should be right in the mix.
Tyrrell Hatton is another player who has won this tournament before but not on this course. He is 11/1 to get his hands on the trophy again and whenever a links layout is put in front of him he is always of interest because his skillset is so strong in that department. Hatton only plays a reduced schedule on the DP World Tour because of his LIV Golf commitments but he has still done enough to quality for this event courtesy of winning the Dubai Desert Classic at the beginning of the season and coming in fifth at the BMW PGA Championship and second at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in his last two starts. His record here is T6-T7-2 so he’s a big danger.
Three players come next in the betting at 14/1 on the best each way prices. They are the Ryder Cup winning trio of Ludvig Aberg, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Robert MacIntyre. The three will be looking to win this title for the first time but they are all more than capable of doing so. Aberg makes his debut in the tournament which might be a negative while Fitzpatrick plays the events here for the first time which might go against him. MacIntyre won the Dunhill Links last month but is yet to crack the top 15 in five attempts at this tournament. It is 16/1 bar.
Main Bets
These are conditions in which Marco Penge usually plays his best golf and having won three times this season he is a man who knows how to get the job done when he is in contention. As well as his three wins, Penge was second in the Scottish Open which had an elite field on a links track so that is a significant box ticked from him. The downside is that he is on debut in this tournament but that would have been the case in Hainan which he won so that might not be the negative it usually is. He is a big hitter who can putt well and that is the profile I like here so he is my first main bet.
This could be a huge week for Kristoffer Reitan as well and he is another one who fits the long hitting and can putt well profile, especially on links tracks where he has caught the eye a couple of times this season. In events on links courses this season he has finished T13 in the Scottish Open, T30 in The Open, T3 at the Nexo Championship and T5 at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship so in these conditions he has shown some real good stuff. He has a win in Belgium on his resume this season which is no bad thing either and has real motivation to go well considering his position in the Race to Dubai standings. I think he’s a big price for a real good run this week.
Outsiders
I’ll go with a couple of outsiders with the first of those being Jacob Skol Olesen, a player who I took at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship where he started well before the dynamic of the tournament changed but all of his best results this season have come on links courses or exposed tracks such as Mauritius and that is certainly catching my eye here. He is long enough off the tee and has shown in a number of events that he can hole putts. If the wind does get up this week he has enough control in his game to deal with that. He was T9 in Mauritius, T3 at the Nexo, eighth in Ireland and T5 at the Dunhill Links and he started The Open well as well. There is enough in that form to suggest he is a big price this week.
At an even bigger price some recent form of Richard Sterne has caught my eye for an outsider pick as well. The South African was fifth in Mauritius at the beginning of the season, tied for tenth at the Nexo Championship in tough conditions, T15 at the Irish Open and then T3 at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship so he is enjoying himself on links tracks this term. All of his injury struggles look to be behind him and he is playing some good golf at the minute and with some players disadvantaged by the links layout this could be a week for Sterne to deliver some place money at a big price.
Tips
Back M.Penge to win Abu Dhabi Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back K.Reitan to win Abu Dhabi Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Spreadex (1/5 1-6)
Back R.Sterne to win Abu Dhabi Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 226.00 with Spreadex (1/5 1-6)
Back J-S.Olesen to win Abu Dhabi Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
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