The DP World Tour season draws to a close this week when the leading 50 players in the Race to Dubai rankings head out to Dubai for the DP World Tour Championship. Unlike the PGA Tour conclusion this is a straight 72 hole tournament to determine the European number one.
Collin Morikawa won this tournament last year on his way to being crowned the Race to Dubai champion but he isn’t in the field this week so we will have a different winner of both this tournament and the Race to Dubai crown.
Recent Winners
2021 – Collin Morikawa
2020 – Matthew Fitzpatrick
2019 – Jon Rahm
2018 – Danny Willett
2017 – Jon Rahm
2016 – Matthew Fitzpatrick
2015 – Rory McIlroy
2014 – Henrik Stenson
2013 – Henrik Stenson
2012 – Rory McIlroy
The Course
We are at the Jumeirah Golf Estates once again this week. The field here go out and do battle with the Earth Course, the track that has staged this tournament since its exception. That means the track is known to the many players who have played it before. It is a par 72 which stretches to 7,706 yards which sounds extremely long but we are in the desert where the air is drier and the ball shoots further as a result.
The equation for the Earth Course is pretty simple. Given the very wide fairways it is simply give it a smack off the tee, walk after it, find it, hit it again into the vicinity of the greens and preferably on them, and then let the short game and touch go to work. This is a second shot golf course but with the wide fairways and relative lack of rough the longer hitters tend to be the ones who score better around here.
The Field
In essence, the tournament is for the leading 50 players in the Race to Dubai rankings but with Collin Morikawa, Will Zalatoris and Thomas Pieters choosing not to accept their invitations for various reasons, Haotong Li at number 53 in the list is the last man into the field. This is a Rolex Series event so there are plenty of points and cash up for grabs although realistically only the top five in the rankings are in contention to win the Race to Dubai crown.
They are Rory McIlroy, who is looking to add the Race to Dubai title to the FedExCup crown he won earlier in the year, the consistent Ryan Fox, the US Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick, the champion in South Africa last week in Tommy Fleetwood and the Norwegian star Viktor Hovland. Other leading lights who are in dangers to win this title include Shane Lowry, Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Jordan Smith.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy has won twice around here but you have to go back to 2015 for the last time he prevailed on this golf course. That might be an immediate turn off for the 3/1 favourite. Another would be that he could quickly get into the situation where he is looking to fend off the challengers for the Race to Dubai title, which might mean more to him than this tournament because it would crown him as the European number one once again. It is three weeks since he last teed it up which might be another negative.
The 5/1 second favourite to win the title this week is Jon Rahm. Unlike McIlroy, he can focus purely on winning this title for a third time because he has no chance of winning the Race to Dubai crown. Rahm is ideally suited to this test and showed at the Open de Espana that he still dominates at this level. If there is a concern it is that Rahm hasn’t teed it up here since 2019 and the course has matured a bit since then but his form figures here read 1-4-1. He’s the one to beat but he’s plenty short enough.
The US Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick comes into the week as the third favourite at 9/1 to win the title for a third time. He is in the same position that McIlroy is in, in that he is chasing the Race to Dubai title as well as this one and that can often be a negative here. He loves this course though. He has form of 4-1-12-34-9-1-2 on this track and the more the course matures and finding fairways becomes a thing the better his chances of winning the title become.
Viktor Hovland is a general 10/1 shot to win the title and unlike the three above, he has teed it up this month, finishing inside the top 10 in Mexico the week before last. This will be just the second time the Norwegian has teed it up here. He was third on debut a year ago and you would imagine that this course holds up well for him if his iron game is on point. If it isn’t and his short game needs to come to the party then that would be more of a concern.
Main Bets
Players who go well in the Alfred Dunhill Links tend to have good records around here and the fact that Ryan Fox won that tournament this year has to stand him in pretty good stead this week. Fox has already won in the desert this year when he took down the Ras al Khaimah Classic and aside from those two wins he has had no fewer than six top four finishes including at the Nedbank Challenge last week where only an indifferent second round denied him the title there. Fox has the freedom to hit his driver this week and with his iron play in tip top form he should be a lot closer to the lead than in his two previous visits, which were when he was nothing like as consistent.
Min Woo Lee is another big hitter who arrives here in decent form. He was third in a couple of the Spanish events recently and then hit the top 10 on a much tougher course in South Africa last which shows he is hitting the ball very nicely. That is important because with his length he is more than capable of taming this course. He scored very well on the par 5s last year and with him hitting the ball better coming in this time around he should go better than the T16 he managed a year ago. The Australian has won an elite event when he took the Scottish Open down last year and with the form he’s in he has every chance of upsetting the established quartet this week.
Outsiders
Sam Horsfield is a winner on tour this season and he has a top five in the desert when he finished in that position in the Dubai Desert Classic and he is another with the length to tame this beast. He was doing just that last year until he put in a bit of a dodgy final round but I think he is worth a go here because he has the profile to go well here. He isn’t just long but he is aggressive and I think that is the way to play this course. Given that he’s now a LIV player he has no Race to Dubai concerns so he can just go out and look to take this tournament down. I’ll pay to see how he goes.
Paul Waring might not be the longest player in the field but he isn’t the shortest. He has a links pedigree and I think that can serve him well this week. Waring finished T14 here last year and that was despite a horrendous second round of 77. He comes here in better form this time around with four top 10s in his last 10 starts including at the Cazoo Classic and the Mallorca Open where he finished second on both occasions. He was in the top 20 last week which would have been a lot better had it not been for a poor final round. I’ll pay to see if he can outrun his price.
Tips
Back R.Fox to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back M.Woo Lee to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Betway (1/5 1-6)
Back S.Horsfield to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with Coral (1/5 1-6)
Back P.Waring to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-6)
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