Five HotelPlanner Tour graduates from the class of 2025 will tee it up at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic this week, as the first of five Rolex Series events on the 2026 Race to Dubai gets under way at Emirates Golf Club.
After finishing 2025 as Road to Mallorca Number One following three victories, South African JC Ritchie is in the field in the United Arab Emirates looking to continue his impressive form in the country, after he finished second at last year’s UAE Challenge at Al Zorah Golf and Yacht Club on the HotelPlanner Tour. The 31-year-old, who secured automatic promotion following wins at the German Challenge powered by VcG, the Open de Portugal at Royal Óbidos and the Italian Challenge Open, has made two appearance already on the 2026 Race to Dubai, and finished tied ninth in his last outing at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
Renato Paratore also won three times on his way to promotion last year, with the 29-year-old set for his fourth outing on the 2026 Race to Dubai this week. Paratore returns to the UAE for the first time since he won back-to-back events on the HotelPlanner Tour last year. The Italian went on to seal automatic promotion back to the DP World Tour at last year’s Hainan Open and will be looking to impress in the Middle East as he targets a third DP World Tour win and a first triumph on Golf’s Global Tour since 2020.
Scotsman David Law secured an instant return to the DP World Tour after losing his playing rights at the end of 2024 with two HotelPlanner Tour wins, coming at the D+D REAL Czech Challenge and Vierumäki Finnish Challenge supported by Finnish Golf Union. The Scot has made the cut twice in three events he has featured in already this season and will be looking to improve on his 2023 performance at Emirates Golf Club, where he ended the week five under par and in a tie for 59th. He did, however, finish his last event in the UAE in tied second place at the Abu Dhabi Challenge.
Austrian Maximilian Steinlechner will make his first appearance in a Rolex Series event this week after he secured promotion to the DP World Tour in his third year on the HotelPlanner Tour. A win at the Interwetten Open, and two top five finishes at the Hainan Open and Hangzhou Open saw Steinlechner finish the season third on the Road to Mallorca Rankings. The Austrian will be looking to make his first cut of the 2026 Race to Dubai after missing out at the BMW Australian PGA Championships and the Crown Australian Open.
Englishman James Morrison won the Rolex Grand Final supported by The R&A in November and has enjoyed a positive start to life back on the DP World Tour. Morrison, who has three career DP World Tour wins to his name, finished the BMW Australian PGA Championship tied for 33rd place and made the cut at the Crown Australian Open. A final round of 67 helped Morrison finish 23rd on the leaderboard at the Alfred Dunhill Championship in his most recent Race to Dubai event.
Morrison will tee off at Emirates Golf Club alongside Paratore and South African Christiaan Maas, while Ritchie will play alongside Englishman Eddie Pepperell and Spaniard Jorge Campillo for the opening two rounds. Law gets his week under way alongside India’s Yuvraj Sandhu and Emirati golfer, Ahmad Skaik. Steinlechner will tee it up with HotelPlanner Tour alumni Italian Francesco Laporta and Frenchman Antoine Rozner.
The 2026 Hero Dubai Desert Classic will take place from January 22-25 before the Race to Dubai heads to Bahrain for the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship and the third event on the International Swing.
