BlogDP World Dubai Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

This week is the end of the season for the European Tour.  Unfortunely it’s going out as a dud because Rory McIlroy has wrapped up season ending honors as the winner of the Race to Dubai.  Making this even worst, this is the end of the four event final series in which McIlroy didn’t attend the first three events.  Frankly this playoff is dead, there is no buzz over it and as we can see, players aren’t showing up because it’s meaningless.

The European Tour is having some problems come to light, and the first one is their money list.  The main problem is eight events that count on the money list, they are majors and WGC events.  So in the case of McIlroy, who has earnings of 5.4 million euro’s (about $6.9 million) in 2014 only 1.3 million euro’s were earned in full fledge European tour events.  So 75% of his earnings are in majors and WGC’s event.

So many are wondering if this is fair?  McIlroy played in 13 “European Tour events” in 2014, but seven of them were majors or WGC events.

So here is the math.  McIlroy won 1,334,902.70 euro’s while Jamie Donaldson, who is third in the Race to Dubai with 2,575,847 euro’s, could have a point on being a winner to the Race to Dubai.

Here is why.  Of the 22 events he has played, 14 of these are full European events while the eight others were majors and WGC events.  In those 14 events, Donaldson won 1,400,191 euro.  That’s about 65,000 euro’s more than McIlroy so some are saying that this is something that should be taken into account in awarding the leading money winner of the European Tour.

Facts are facts, McIlroy played better than Donaldson, with wins in two majors and a WGC event.  Still the European Tour needs to do something to make their playoffs standout, and they haven’t.  Just putting up a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re going to get players to travel halfway around the world to China for that event.  The one thing the FedEx Cup has going for it, you just can’t play in one event and expect to win it.  There is some meaning in playing all four events, McIlroy proved that by playing in all four FedEx Cup events in 2014.  So the European Tour has to do something that not forces players to attend, but give the event value enough for the player to attend, something that didn’t happen this year on the final series.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the DP World Championship:

Key stat for the winner:

Of the five previous winners, three of them have been the winner of the Race to Dubai so look at the leader of the Race to Dubai as a possible winner.  Rory McIlroy has that advantage this year, he won the event and the Race to Dubai in 2012.  The other due winner was last year’s champion Henrik Stenson and in 2009 Lee Westwood won both the tournament and the Race to Dubai.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Just look at the performance chart and you can see that this event has been owned by five different players, Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson.  Throw in guys like Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel and Jamie Donaldson I can narrow down the 60 players in the field down to these ten.
• Two important elements come across in the previous five winners.  First is driving distance, four of the five winners were in the top-ten while one (Alvaro Quiros in 2011) led while Rory McIlroy in 2012 was 2nd.  Hitting greens is also very important, last year’s winner Stenson led that category just like Lee Westwood in 2009.  In 2011 Alvaro Quiros was T2nd, so you have to hit the ball good and straight from tee to green
• All of the par-5s are easy, last year Stenson played them in 10 under. The best was 12 under by Alvaro Quiros in 2011 while the worst was Robert Karlsson in 2010 when he played them in 7 under
• Surprisingly all of the winners have played the par 4s well, Stenson was 14 under last year, Lee Westwood played them in 13 under in 2009 while the worst was Robert Karlsson at 7 under in 2010.
• You will have no probably with the weather as each day is sunny and in the mid-80s.  There are zero chance of any rain in the next week, and there won’t be any wind, so players can attack the course.