McIlroy – The Maths Is Quite Simple For Him To Match Seve’s Race To Dubai Achievement

10 months ago by Comments Off on McIlroy – The Maths Is Quite Simple For Him To Match Seve’s Race To Dubai Achievement

For Rory McIlroy the maths is quite simple if he is to capture a sixth DP World Tour title and match the achievement of the late, great Seve Ballesteros.

McIlroy heads into the 2024 season-ending DP World Tour Championship needing to finish alone in 11th place or better to be handed the Harry Vardon trophy.

The Northern Irishman could have wrapped-up the title at last week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship albeit for a clumsy end to his rounds on both Friday and Saturday that eventually saw him finish just three shots adrift of England’s winning Paul Waring.

Nonetheless, he heads into this week’s tournament with a comfortable 1,785 point lead over nearest Race to Dubai rival in South African Triston Lawrence, who was just a shot adrift of McIlroy on the Yas Links course.

And with 2,000 points on offer this week to the Dubai winner the victory gates remain open for both and with the following scenarios in place:

  • Lawrence wins Race to Dubai title if McIlroy finishes outside top-11.
  • McIlroy wins a sixth Race to Dubai by simply finishing ahead of Lawrence.

The 27-year-old Lawrence is competing in his third full DPWT season having 14th on the Race to Dubai in 2022 and 19th a year ago.  He’s also had four wins in his DPWT career, the last being the 2023 BMW International Open while his best results this season include five second-place finishes including runner-up with McIlroy at the BMW PGA Championship after both players lost out in the Wentworth play-off to Billy Horschel.

Though Lawrence’s best finishes in his two DP World Tour Championship’s was T5th last year.

In contrast, McIlroy has won twice this year includes both a fourth Hero Dubai Desert Classic success and also a fourth Wells Fargo win while his record in this week’s Jumeirah Estates hosted season-ending event is most impressive with two wins (2015 and 2012) along with seven other top-10 finishes.

And as reported by GolfByTourMiss earlier last week McIlroy spoke ahead of the Abu Dhabi event what it would me to win a sixth Race to Dubai trophy.

“I’m a European player. I would like to go down as the most successful European of all time. Obviously Race to Dubai wins would count to that but also major championships and hopefully I’ve got a few more Ryder Cups ahead of me as well,” he said,

“So that’s something that I would like to, I think is a goal that’s quite attainable over the next ten years.

“I’m very proud to be from Europe and have sort of, you know, played on this tour and played on this tour consistently.

“Yeah, it’s something that I’m very proud of and I just think of the greats of European golf that I grew up watching, whether it was Faldo or Woosie or Langer or just sort of the really heyday of The European Tour in the ’90s, I guess.

“And yeah, I remember when I got my — not even my European Tour card. I remember when I got my first money clip just when I signed up to be a member and that was a really proud moment for me. That’s something that I’ve always been proud of and something I want to continue to do.”

 

 



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