The 2020 European Tour comes to a conclusion this week with the DP World Tour Championship as the final event on the tour’s Race to Dubai.
The field takes a big hit at the top this week with Jon Rahm, the World No. 2 and defending event and Race to Dubai winner, and World No. 4 Rory McIlroy, two-time Dubai winner, electing to shut it down and not play.
Several other event qualifiers, including Louis Oosthuizen, Lucas Herbert, Paul Casey and Shane Lowry, are also not participating.
Nevertheless, we do have plenty of top players teeing it up in Dubai, including six of the OWGR top-20 players. Patrick Reed (9/1) has traveled to Europe to play the DP World Tour Championship in four of the last five years and finished runner-up to Danny Willett (50/1) two years ago.
Tyrrell Hatton (12/1) has won an event on both sides of the pond in 2020 and has three top 10s in six appearances here. Tommy Fleetwood was runner-up last year to Rahm and shares a 14/1 price with Viktor Hovland, who made birdie on the 72nd hole Sunday to win the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico, and PGA Champion Collin Morikawa, who is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 7 and makes his first overseas appearance of 2020.
Matthew Fitzpatrick (16/1) won this event in 2016. Sungjae Im (18/1) primarily plays on the PGA Tour, but he rarely takes an event off and has still managed to play 28 weeks in 2020 even with COVID-19 taking away three months of professional touring golf. Christiaan Bezuidenhout (20/1) has won back-to-back events in his native South Africa and comes into this week in better form than any player in the field.
Some other possible contenders:
The Event
The DP World Tour Championship was established in 2009 as the Race to Dubai replaced the former European Tour Order of Merit. Global port operator DP World, based in Dubai and formed in 2005 with the merger of Dubai Ports Authority and Dubai Ports International, serves as the title sponsor of this event. Last year only 50 players were in the field, but there will be 65 this week. Originally the top 60 in the Race to Dubai points were scheduled to be here, but several non-participants from that list have afforded spots to around a dozen players to fill out the field. In addition, players like Viktor Hovland, Danny Willett, Jazz Janewattanond and Henrik Stenson gain entry due to ranking in the OWGR top 75.
Here are the current Race to Dubai Points Leaders:
Patrick Reed 2,427.7
Tommy Fleetwood 1967.7
Collin Morikawa 1881.7
Lee Westwood 1793.0
Christiaan Bezuidenhout 1717.7
Victor Perez 1713.9
Aaron Rai 1688.2
Louis Oosthuizen 1646.2 (not playing this week)
Tyrrell Hatton 1453.0
Lucas Herbert 1332.4 (not playing this week)
The Course
The Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates has played host to this event every year since the tournament’s creation. The course was designed by Greg Norman and it opened in 2009. The track is a monster at 7,675 yards with two of the par-5s measuring over 620 yards, the tough par-4 9th 500 yards, plus the 195-yard par-3 17th which plays to an island green. Greens are large, undulating Bermudagrass which measure 12’6″on the stimpmeter. Water is in play on the final three holes and there are 99 bunkers predominantly featured in the fairways. Although the course is long, it is fairly easy to score upon as the average winning score over the last 10 years falls in between 19- and 20-under par. Nevertheless those ballstrikers who are especially good with long irons should be successful here and being long off the tee never hurts either. Over the last 10 years, the winner has rated an average of sixth in the field in driving distance. Every winner here ranked at least eighth or better in the category except for Matthew Fitzpatrick in 2016 and Danny Willett last year, who both rated 16th in their respective fields. Course form also tends to matter here as every winner dating back to Alvaro Quiros in 2011 had at least a top-7 finish here with the exception of Jon Rahm winning here in 2017 on his course debut. However, Rahm did already have two victories during that calendar year. By and large, players of some class tend to win here and you don’t see many longer shots in the winner’s circle.
Recent History/Winners
2019: Jon Rahm (-19/269); 7/1
2018: Danny Willett (-18/270); 80/1
2017: Jon Rahm (-19/269); 12/1
2016: Matthew Fitzpatrick (-17/271); 66/1
2015: Rory McIlroy (-21/267); 5/1
2014: Henrik Stenson (-16/272); 17/2
2013: Henrik Stenson (-25/263); 11/1**
2012: Rory McIlroy (-23/265); 6/1
2011: Alvaro Quiros (-19/269); 40/1
2010: Robert Karlsson (-14/274); 50/1*
*Playoff win over Ian Poulter
** All-Time Tournament Scoring Record
Matt Wallace (25/1) finished tied for second last week on the Fire Course at Jumeriah Golf Estates for the Golf in Dubai Championship. He also has had success on the Earth Course with a runner-up finish two years ago.
He is also consistently good with the putter, ranking 11th in Putts per GIR on the European Tour this season.
Bernd Wiesberger (25/1) finished eighth in last week’s event after a slow start with a first round of 70 (nine shots back of then-leader Andy Sullivan’s 61).
He also finished a respectable fourth at the RSM Classic three weeks ago, week after the Masters. His strong tee-to-green game (seventh on the European Tour – +1.25 strokes gained per round) should make him a contender here.
Robert MacIntyre (31/1) earned his first European Tour victory several weeks ago at the Cyprus Showdown.
He is absolutely striping and flushing it right now as evident by ranking 13th, second, first and second in the field for Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee in his last four starts as well as rating first, second, 25th and 10th in the field for Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green in that same span.
Dean Burmester (80/1) comes in off a fourth in his native South Africa last weekend. He also has two fourth-place finishes on this very course in 2017 and 2018.
The Earth Course is a big track and distance is never not beneficial, and Burmester ranks second in Driving Distance (329.8 yards) on the European Tour. He also ranks second on tour for Strokes Gained: Putting (+1.30 strokes gained per round).
