It ended, as we had hoped, with a roar of approval after one of the finest rounds in modern golfing history.
The simple fact is that for Lee John Westwood, the inaugural Race to Dubai climaxed with the sweetest of saunters up the final fairway of the Earth course at Jumeirah Golf Estates in the heart of the United Arab Emirates. A saunter, yes, but for the Englishman and everyone else on The European Tour, this Race had been the most competitive and compelling of marathons.
Conceived in 2007, activated in 2008 and brilliantly executed in 2009, The Race To Dubai was, in the end, much more than the sum of its considerable parts. The money is a huge part of it, of course, and the fact that Westwood ended the year with €4,237,762 – the highest single season earnings in European Tour history – should not be overlooked.
But money cannot buy everything. What it does is focus the mind, offer a target and, in this case, encourage the sort of sporting entertainment and endeavour that was set so excellently before a world stage.
While the enthralling Dubai World Championship was the final chapter, the narrative of this story had been written across twelve months, 51 tournaments and 27 destinations in almost every corner of the globe.
When The European Tour took its first tentative steps outside the continent from which it takes its name, there were those who forecast tears. They were right too - but these tears were, ultimately, of joy and were glistening in the eyes of Westwood as the stoical Englishman holed his final putt to win both the week and the year after the most captivating performance of his career.
No-one now may legitimately doubt the wisdom of The European Tour hierarchy about undertaking such a venture. When Chief Executive George O’Grady spoke at the launch in Dubai in November 2007, his happiness was plain to see. Such pleasure was richly deserved while the foresight of the Tour’s partners in the venture, Leisurecorp, was commended.
Theirs, naturally, was a business decision but it was a strategy that revolved precisely around the integrity and quality offered by the body of men, players and employees, of The European Tour. In an age when even the most respected of competitors can stoop to underhand methods to secure victory in other sports, the old game’s spiritual core of decency once more shines significantly as a beacon of hope in an otherwise beleaguered sporting landscape.
So it was that Rory McIlroy, the new, tousle-haired, and smiley face of much that is in the future for European golf, could play his heart out in Dubai, lose to Westwood and immediately offer sincere words of congratulations to the man who beat him to the biggest of prizes.
He is not alone either. There exists a platoon of young European Tour players who are on the verge of becoming the new, elite force of professional golf over the next decade. Players like Germany’s Martin Kaymer and Ross Fisher of England who arrived in Dubai with their own chances of winning the Race before settling for third and fourth place respectively. There are also the likes of Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño and Alvaro Quiros, England’s Ross McGowan and Oliver Wilson, Italy’s Francesco Molinari and Sweden’s Alexander Noren, all in their 20s, to consider in addition to another Englishman, Chris Wood, who celebrated his 22nd birthday by being named The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year.
It is truly a richly embroidered future, especially as, at the end of the inaugural Race to Dubai, six
Europeans – Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy – occupied places in the top ten of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in history.
Why should this be? There are many reasons, not least the legacy offered by older players of the calibre of José Maria Olazábal, who was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2009, but also there has been the raising of the bar throughout The European Tour when it comes to conditioning and preparation of courses, the improved organisation and prize money, to offer a bedrock of explanation. In all of this, however, the concept of The Race To Dubai is crucial.
Every journey needs a destination and in Dubai and the Earth course, the Tour found a perfect end-game.
It was a journey that had begun more than a year earlier when Sergio Garcia triumphed in the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Garcia’s mercurial flamboyance meant he led the standings in The Race to Dubai for 11 heady weeks. In all, six players enjoyed the spotlight that comes from being in pole position.
Geoff Ogilvy also led for 11 weeks following his victory in the World Golf Championships - Accenture Match Play; Paul Casey was there for 12 weeks thanks to his wins in The Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and the flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club in England; Martin Kaymer was top for six weeks following his back-to-back summer successes in the Open de France ALSTOM and The Barclays Scottish Open, before McIlroy and Westwood grappled with each other so thrillingly over the final couple of months.
Here, sympathetic words must be offered to both Casey and Kaymer for the Englishman and the German each suffered injuries at crucial times. Casey’s pulled muscle under his rib cage eventually forced him to withdraw from Dubai while the foot Kaymer hurt while go-karting took him out of competition for nine weeks and numbed his challenge.
They will unquestionably be back to joust again for one of the richest prizes in world sport but only one man could win the first Race to Dubai and so anoint himself the Number One golfer in Europe:- that man was Westwood. It was an achievement which brought the ultimate satisfaction to a professional golfer who has always been a credit to himself, his family and his sport.
Framed by the desert and lost wonderfully in his own cocoon of concentration during the week of the Dubai World Championship, Westwood’s golf was simply magnificent. On an Earth course designed by Greg Norman, the lad from Worksop at times touched a game even he did not suspect he possessed.
It was in 2000 that he won his other European Number One title. He was 27 at the time and accepted the triumph as just another happy milestone in a career that already was studded with high success. He had, after all, been runner-up to Colin Montgomerie a year earlier.
However, just when it seemed things could only get better, everything started to turn worse. By 2002 he was in a slump, hovering outside the top 200 in the world and generally fed up with the game. It was, make no mistake, a desperate time for a decent young man. He suddenly portrayed a confused figure in a world he had once strode across with confidence.
An intelligent man, he knew he had a choice to make. He could either walk away from the sport that had already made him comfortable financially or he could face up to the unexpected frailties and rededicate himself to improvement. He chose the latter.
He rebuilt his swing under the guidance of his long-time coach Pete Cowen before embarking on a physical fitness campaign that further bolstered both his swing and his ability to maintain energy and focus over the demanding final holes of any fiercely contested tournament week.
This, of course, was the easy bit. The tough part was restoring confidence in his ability. This was something he never had had to worry about as he swashbuckled his way from outstanding youth to precocious professional. It is, however, what separates the talented from the truly successful. It took some time coming, this confidence thing, but when it did, it was an even better and more consistent player who emerged.
Before 2009, he had won 18 European Tour titles but only four of those came after 2000 and no-one knew this weary statistic better than the man himself. However, his instinct to acknowledge the hard facts is a huge strength. Too many sportsmen fool themselves that they are better than they actually are but Westwood, while internally acknowledging his ability, was determined to remain reluctant to reach out for a trumpet until there was actually something to toot about.
The first stepping stone to that came on Sunday October 18 when he won the Portugal Masters in Vilamoura, his first victory for over two years. The win did more than simply lift him up the rankings, it offered the conclusive evidence he needed that he was not just an outstanding player but, actually, a natural winner. This effect was seen in his stellar performance in Dubai, an effort that was encouraged all the way by his brilliant caddie, Billy Foster.
You see, for Lee Westwood, the big effort in 2009 was not just to make The European Tour’s climactic week as a genuine contender but to prove something to himself. It turned out he proved much more. Asked by a journalist at his post-tournament press conference how good his play had been over a stunning weekend, he at last grabbed that trumpet and tooted: “That was my best ever.”
It was good to hear.
Bill Elliott
The Observer
Reproduced by kind permission of The European Tour Yearbook 2010. To order your copy, visit the European Tour Store here
