Europe’s finest golfers will unite at The Celtic Manor Resort next month when they take on the United States, but once The Ryder Cup is over, the normal fierce rivalry will resume as the season heads towards its climax at the Dubai World Championship.
Germany’s Martin Kaymer will make his Ryder Cup debut in Wales, but the US PGA Champion will afterwards turn his attention to maintaining his lead at the top of The Race to Dubai and attempting to take over from Lee Westwood as Europe’s Number One.
Westwood won the inaugural Dubai World Championship last year and with it was crowned Race to Dubai champion, and at almost half a million euros behind Kaymer in third place currently, the Englishman will not relinquish his title without a fight.
A calf injury has sidelined Westwood for the past few weeks and he is battling to be fit for The Ryder Cup, but if he can reach peak form for the final stretch of 2010 we are in for mouthwatering tussle at the top.
Northern Irishmen Graeme McDowell, the US Open champion, is second in the current Race to Dubai, just €198,483 behind Kaymer, and will head to Jumeirah Golf Estates from November 25 – 28 with designs on topping the pile, while his compatriot and Ryder Cup team-mate Rory McIlroy, who finished second to Westwood last year, is presently 11th.
It will not just be a straight battle for first place, however, as there is much at stake throughout The Race to Dubai. The top 15 players at the end of the season share a $7,500,000 bonus pool, so Ryder Cup players Ross Fisher, Francesco Molinari and Padraig Harrington, currently 16th, 17th and 18th respectively, will be aiming to claw their way in.
Peter Hanson, one of six European players to be making his Ryder Cup debut, is 14th following wins at the Czech Open 2010 and the Iberdrola Open Cala Millor Mallorca, while Edoardo Molinari has also won twice this season and rose to sixth after finishing runner-up at the Omega European Masters.
That tournament was won by Spaniard Miguel Angel Jiménez, who will make his fourth Ryder Cup appearance at The Celtic Manor Resort and who has won three times in 2010 to occupy eighth place in The Race to Dubai. The 46 year old has never won a European Tour Order of Merit despite claiming 18 victories, so he will be looking to capitalise on his superb form this year.
Luke Donald, one of European Captain Colin Montgomerie’s wild card picks, is 13th and will look to hang on inside the top 15 during the final ten events of the season before we head to Dubai, while Ian Poulter is ninth, largely thanks to his victory in the WGC-Accenture Match Play.
The Dubai World Championship, which last year was a stunning success with Westwood pipping Ross McGowan and McIlory to the €830,675 first prize, comprises the top 60 players in The Race to Dubai so players further down the rankings will be desperately trying to earn inclusion in the field for one of the season’s most lucrative events.
Dutchman Robert-Jan Derksen boosted his chances with a tied fifth place finish at the Omega European Masters lifting him from 60th to 50th, while Thomas Aiken, tied 15th at Crans-sur-Sierre, climbed to 59th from 62nd.
Italian teenager Matteo Manassero has virtually secured the goal he set himself at the start of the season – to earn his European Tour card for 2011 – so he could reassess his aims to include a place in the Dubai World Championship having leapt up to 89th from 127th with third place in the Omega European Masters.
The 17 year old has his work cut out, but with more big performances starting this week at the KLM Open, he might well be able to showcase his prodigious talent on the Greg Norman-designed Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates come November.
