At precisely 9.25am local time on a cool, overcast day in Shanghai, the familiar dulcet tones of silver-haired Official Starter, Ivor Robson, shattered the still morning air. With the simple words “On the tee, from Sweden…Robert Karlsson” golfing history was made. The Race to Dubai was off and running.
Golfing dignitaries, including European Tour Chief Executive George O’Grady, huddled round the first tee in anticipation as Karlsson struck the first blow in the HSBC Champions tournament, the initial hurdle out of 51 to be cleared before The Race to Dubai champion is confirmed at the end of a 382 day campaign involving players from 40 nations.
Amid the staccato burst of cameras shutters recording the historic moment, Karlsson contrived to make a birdie…the perfect way to start a contest which will conclude next week at the Dubai World Championship on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, UAE.
Since that first hole we have witnessed some scintillating golf, a wealth of emerging talent, keenly fought battles and, particularly now we approach the final leg of the long journey, intense competition. Next week the top 60 players in The Race to Dubai Rankings will contest the $7.5million prize fund – and the $7.5million Bonus Pool for the leading 15 players come the end of the inaugural event.
Along the way players from 16 different nations have triumphed in The Race to Dubai, with England winning the highest number of trophies – nine – thanks to a glut of champions in the final few weeks of the season. The United States are not far behind with six, while Australia and Sweden have each had five winners and Argentina four.
We have witnessed 31 hole in ones, 15 first-time winners and 13 new course records. Rory McIlroy, who arrived in Dubai just ahead of Lee Westwood in The Race to Dubai Rankings, has had the most top five finishes this season with 11 – more than twice as many as his closest challengers, Rafael Cabrera-Bello, Westwood and Martin Kaymer, who each have five.
Sergio Garcia was the man who set the ball rolling, beating England’s Oliver Wilson in a play-off to capture the HSBC title and go into the winter break as leader in The Race to Dubai.
Garcia was joined as a Race to Dubai winner by his big-hitting compatriot Alvaro Quiros, whose victory in the Commercialbank Qatar Masters highlighted him as a potential star and set the tone for an impressive year.
South African Richard Sterne staked his claim to contest the ‘race within the race’ – to be one of the top 15 who will collect a slice of the Bonus Pool, which starts at $1.5 million and goes down to $187,500 for 15th place.
Sterne took full advantage of playing on home soil to land the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the South African Open, played over the magnificent Pearl Valley Golf Estates in the Western Cape, in consecutive weeks.
Four other players have also tasted victory twice this season: Thongchai Jaidee at the Enjoy Jakarta Indonesia Open and the Ballantine’s Championship in South Korea; Paul Casey at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and the BMW PGA Championship; Simon Dyson at the KLM Open and then the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship six weeks later and Martin Kaymer, who enjoyed back to back wins at the Open de France ALSTOM and the Barclays Scottish Open.
McIlroy emerged as a strong contender for The Race to Dubai title in the first part of the season. The 20 year old from Northern Ireland lost out in a play-off to Lin Wen-tang from Chinese Taipei for the UBS Hong Kong Open, but won millions of admirers worldwide with his superb maiden European Tour success in the Dubai Desert Classic.
Victory catapulted McIlroy into the top 20 on the Official World Golf Ranking and set the tone for an impressively consistent first full season on The European Tour, by the end of which he was within touching distance of winning The Race to Dubai, having leapfrogged Lee Westwood into pole position with a runner-up finish at the UBS Hong Kong Open, the last event before the Dubai World Championship, behind Frenchman Grégory Bourdy.
Two-time BMW PGA Champion Anders Hansen of Denmark won the Joburg Open, and others to make their move early on were Casey, Jaidee and Geoff Ogilvy, whose second victory at the WGC-Accenture Match Play propelled him to the top of the money list.
An even bigger success awaited Angel Cabrera of Argentina in the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, and that was followed by breakthrough wins for American Anthony Kang, Argentine Tano Goya and Northern Ireland’s Michael Hoey. Dane Søren Kjeldsen and Thomas Levet of France now have multiple victories in Spain following their successes at the Open de Andalucia de Golf 09 and the Open de España respectively.
The surprise winner of 2009 was Shane Lowry, the 22 year old amateur who won The 3 Irish Open on home soil and turned professional shortly afterwards, and a week later Casey edged a thrilling battle with Fisher to claim the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club. Bad news was to follow for Casey, however, as a rib injury kept him sidelined for much of the summer, and recurred after he made his comeback in October, jeopardising his bid to be Europe’s Number One.
History was made when YE Yang won the US Open to become the first Asian Major Champion, a few weeks after Tom Watson narrowly missed out on writing himself into the record books when he was denied The Open Championship crown by Stewart Cink, who prevailed in a play-off. Watson needed to hole an eight foot putt at the 18th to become the oldest Open Champion at 59 but missed, forcing a play-off with his compatriot. Westwood was a shot back in third place, alongside Chris Wood, who bettered his fifth-place finish of 2008, this time as a professional.
There was a stunning upset at the SAS Masters in Sweden when Ricardo Gonzalez birdied five of the last six holes to win by two from Jamie Donaldson. The Argentine, who until that point had not had a top ten all season, holed a tricky bunker shot at the 17th and then chipped out of the trees to within five feet at the last, which he holed to seal a blistering victory.
Dyson made it a summer to remember with two wins in as many months, and Kaymer found the form of his life to record consecutive victories, only to be frustrated by a foot injury suffered in a go-karting accident which kept him out for six weeks. His return, a runner-up finish at the CASTELLÓ MASTERS Costa Azahar, fired him back into contention to win The Race to Dubai, but with Westwood winning the Portugal Masters and McIlroy maintaining his fine form at the WGC-HSBC Champions and in Hong Kong, he has been held off so far.
Fisher’s success at the Volvo World Match Play Championship, where he beat Anthony Kim in the final, sent a warning to the top three that he was not yet out of the Race, but he arrived in the Gulf knowing that winning the Dubai World Championship still might not be enough to be Europe’s Number One, as a second-place finish for either McIlroy or Westwood would give them European golf’s ultimate prize.
So many permutations and calculations to be made, but one thing is for certain: we are in for a mouth-watering treat in Dubai.
