Rory McIlroy, Race to Dubai triumph for seventh time
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy is for the seventh time, the fourth consecutive time, winner of the Race to Dubai (order of merit) on the DP World Tour. In Dubai, in the DP World Tour Championship, the last event of the five seasonal Rolex Series and the circuit’s calendar, he came close to a double feat of winning the tournament as well, beaten by Britain’s Matt Fitzpatrick (270 – 69 69 66, -18 strokes) with a par on the first playoff hole.
At Jumeirah Golf Estates (Earth Course, par 72), in the United Arab Emirates, McIlroy (270 – 66 69 68 67), world number two and leader after three rounds, was overtaken by his opponent (66, -6, six birdies, no bogey), who then took the lead alone with a birdie on the last hole, but recovered with an eagle on the final green (67, -5, one eagle, five birdies, two bogeys). In the playoff, however, he sent the ball into the water with the driver and could not avoid bogey and thus confirm the title he won the previous year (and on two other occasions, 2012, 2015).
In third place with 271 (-17) were Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg and England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Laurie Canter, who had long hoped for a wider playoff, in seventh with 273 (-15) was Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard and in eighth with 274 (-14) were Spain’s Angel Ayora, China’s Haotong Li and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre.
The latter was the first to finish in the top three.
Matthew Fitzpatrick, 31, of Sheffield, ten wins on the DP World Tour, including one Major (U.S. Open 2022) and one on the PGA Tour, net of the Major, is third in the event after those in 2016 and 2020. For the feat he received a check for 2,577,945 euros out of a prize pool of about 8,600,000 euros ($10,000,000 the official figure).
Rory McIlroy, to whom 1,082,736 euros went, won the Race to Dubai with 5,975 points and a wide margin over Englishman Marco Penge, second with p. 4,008 and followed by three compatriots-Fitzpatrick (p. 3,841), Tyrrell Hatton (p. 3,099) and Fleetwood (2,936). Best Italian Francesco Laporta (55th). Now McIlroy, who previously went on to score in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2022, 2023 and 2024, is aiming to match Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie, who has been “king of Europe” eight times, including seven consecutive times from 1993 to 1999.
