There are very few tournaments in the world that can boast of two concurring main storylines running parallel to each other, but the DP World Tour Championship is one of them.
The season-ending tournament on the European Tour is not only a fantastic standalone competition, but also acts the finale of the Race to Dubai, thus crowning two champions on Sunday.
And with seven players in the reckoning to become the European No1, it is going to be an exciting four days of golf for the UAE fans.
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There are several interesting storylines ahead of Thursday’s start of play at the Earth course of Jumeirah Golf Estates.
The biggest excitement in a season-ending tournament is always around the Order of Merit winner, and that will see a direct battle between No1 Rory McIlroy and No2 Danny Willett, who are separated by just 1,613 points.
There are five other players in the field – Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace and Korean rookie
Byeong-hun An – who can influence the tournament, but even a victory for them may not guarantee the Race to Dubai crown as McIlroy and Willett can still remain ahead by finishing second.
There are various permutations involved, which is explained in the box below.
However, world No3 McIlroy will start with a clear advantage over the others just because of his outstanding record on the golf course. The Ulsterman has never finished worse than tied 11th place in the six editions.
The same applies for Justin Rose, who has finished runner-up twice and holds the course record of 10-under par 62, which he shot in the final round in 2012 but was still beaten by a rampant McIlroy, who birdied his last five holes on Sunday.
As for the tournament itself, Henrik Stenson will be looking for a third straight win on a golf course that he has somehow figured out much better than everybody else.
The Swede has brought the course down to its knees the last two years by hitting umpteen greens in regulation, and he seems to be getting into a similar mode after hitting 65 GIRs last week in finishing third at the BMW Masters in Shanghai.
Among the in-form players who can pose a threat to Stenson are Frenchman Victor Dubuisson, who won the Turkish Airlines Open; Kristoffer Broberg, who beat Patrick Reed at the BMW Masters in a play-off; Denmark’s Lucas Bjerregaard; England’s Ross Fisher and South African Jaco van Zyl.
The players will also be jostling to finish inside the top-15 of the Race to Dubai, which qualifies them for a share of the $5 million bonus pool, enhanced by another $1.35m for those who have played three of the four Final Series event.
Another interesting battle is for the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award and features An, England’s Matt Fitzpatrick (14th in the Race to Dubai) and India’s Anirban Lahiri (19th).
An is in the driving seat, but a good week for Fitzpatrick or Lahiri can turn things around.
Fans should also watch out for a hole-in-one this week. There have been a record 45 on the Tour this season, so that trend could well continue at the Earth course.
