The DP World Tour season comes to a close this week when the leading players of the campaign head to Dubai for the DP World Tour Championship where there are plenty of riches on offer for those teeing it up.
Jon Rahm took down this tournament a year ago and the top quality Spaniard has obviously made it into the field to attempt to make a successful defence of his crown, but as ever in this event there are plenty of top names out to stop him.
Recent Winners
2022 – Jon Rahm
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
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
This tournament always has one of the best fields of the year and the fact that 12 members of the top 50 in the world are here suggests nothing has changed this week. Four of those players are in the top 10 of those rankings in Rory McIlroy, the defending champion Jon Rahm, the FedExCup winner from earlier in the year on the other side of the pond in Viktor Hovland and a former champion and man who loves it here in Matthew Fitzpatrick.
It is all about the Race to Dubai this week though with McIlroy and Rahm the top two at the outset but the top 10 will all fancy their chances of big money this week. Adrian Meronk is third in those standings ahead of Ryan Fox in fourth and Victor Perez in fifth. The top spot is probably beyond those ranked 6-10 but they are Thorbjorn Olesen, Alexander Bjork, Sami Valimaki, Min Woo Lee and Nicolai Hojgaard. Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Tom Kim and Sepp Straka are other notables in the field.
Market Leaders
Rory McIlroy has been in the news again this week after his comments regarding the PGA Tour and subsequent resignation of his place on the Policy Board there. He is the 9/2 favourite to win a title which he hasn’t actually won since 2015 but the caveat to that is that much like this year he has quite often appeared in front in the Race to Dubai standings and his primary concern has been to ensure he held on to that rather than winning this event. That being the case again would put me off at a short price.
The defending champion Jon Rahm has three wins around here and might well need to make that four if he is going to be crowned the European number one once again. Rahm is 11/2 to win the title and has the ideal game for around here and hasn’t been overly worked in recent times. I’m not a fan of backing defending champions due to the restrictions on their time but if I had to choose between the front two in the betting I would go with the Spaniard.
Viktor Hovland appears at this tournament with his stock and status higher than ever and he is 6/1 to add the DP World Tour Championship to the Tour Championship he claimed on the PGA Tour earlier in the year. You have to be a special player to do that double but Hovland certainly ticks that particular box. If something does catch him out here it might be that one or two fancied runners hit it further than he does but I’d expect him to be in contention.
A trio of Englishmen come next in the betting as Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood and Matthew Fitzpatrick are all 14/1 to win the final tournament of the season. All three are brilliant into the greens which is very much a requirement around here but Fleetwood and Hatton are outside the top 20 in the Race to Dubai standings which shows that they have struggled this term and Fitzpatrick is only sat at number 18. That does mean that all three can focus purely on winning this event but the price isn’t fantastic on any of them.
Main Bets
I’ll go with just the one main bet this week which comes in the form of Nicolai Hojgaard who looks in tremendous form at the minute. He was the closest challenger to Max Homa in the Nedbank last week and that was his third top five finish in his last four starts on the DP World Tour. The failure in that run was at the BMW PGA Championship where he had just received the news that he had been given a wildcard at the Ryder Cup so you can forgive him for his head being all over the place in that situation.
Hojgaard has only played this tournament once which was two years ago when he finished in a tie for fourth. There is no doubt that he is a better player now than he was then and there is equally no doubt he is well suited to the test in front of him this week. Anyone who is shooting 15 under around the Gary Player Country Club is clearly hitting the ball well and having led the stroked gained putting at the Nedbank he looks nicely positioned for a good crack at this.
Outsiders
I’ll play a couple of outsiders to have big weeks here as well with the first of those being Victor Perez. He probably needs a big week in this company for his own peace of mind as much as anything and this track represents a golden chance for him to get it. He is a very good driver of the ball and his long game is generally pretty decent. We know that on exposed greens he can often get the ball rolling and he has three top 20 finishes in four starts here. He has a 66 and a pair of 67s in four starts here so if he can score to that level for four rounds he shouldn’t be far away.
The other outsider I like is Sami Valimaki, the winner of the Qatar Masters a couple of weeks ago. Having won in Qatar he’ll be looking to do a quick-fire Emirates double and I think he has every chance of competing here. Valimaki was fourth in strokes gained on approach that week and that is a relevant statistic here. He was also second in strokes gained from tee to green so his long game looks in good working order. If he gets the putter working he should go very well here. He finished in a tie for fifth in his only previous appearance in this event and to go with that win in Qatar he was also in the top 10 in Abu Dhabi at the beginning of the season so he clearly loves playing golf in this part of the world. I’ll pay to see how well he goes here.
Tips
Back N.Hojgaard to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with 888sport (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back V.Perez to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Coral (1/5 1-8)
Back S.Valimaki to win DP World Tour Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with Coral (1/5 1-8)
