Tyrrell Hatton earned his sixth Rolex Series title with a dominant five shot victory over Rory McIlroy at the DP World Tour Championship as McIlroy claimed a record-tying eighth Race to Dubai title.
As the battle for the Race to Dubai held its intensity until the very last moments, Hatton's final round at Jumeriah Golf Estates was realitively stress free, mixing one bogey with seven birdies on his way to a final round 66 around the Earth Course.
Despite missing the green with his approach to the par-five 18th, Hatton managed a chip and two putts to sign off an incredible end to the season finale with his ninth victory on the DP World Tour.
"This is really special," Hatton said afterwards.
"I was really nervous today. I didn't say anything to anyone in my team or even to Emily. Yeah, I've had a bit of heartbreak around here, and I felt like it was going to be a difficult day. Just really proud of how I played on the back nine. Putter was amazing. Certainly saved me all week. It feels so good to win here."
Hatton, who held a one shot advantage over Victor Perez ahead of the final round, made a brilliant par-save from a wayward tee shot off the first and from there quickly extended his advantage with back-to-back birdies from the second.
He then recovered from a solitary bogey at the fourth with a continued display of brilliance with his irons, and while briefly cuaght at the top of the leaderboard by Mikael Lindberg, he began to pull away after adding a further birdie at the seventh to make the turn in 34.
The nine-time DP World Tour winner then found his groove over the closing nine, making birdies at 10, 12, 14 and 15 on his way to finishing with a comfortable gap around the Earth Course at Jumeriah Golf Estates.
"As I said, feeling weirdly nervous. So I tried not to look at leaderboards too much, and then just caught a glimpse of where I was at on 6, the par 3. And then I tried to not look at a leaderboard again until I think it was the par-514.
"So yeah I was just trying to keep my head down and try and make birdies. It felt like the conditions were marginally easy today because there was less wind but yeah some is of the greens were so fast, it was hard -- I found it difficult at times to get the pace right but just glad it worked out in the end."
He joins Lee Westwood (2009), Matt Fitzpatrick (2016, 2020, 2025) , and Danny Willett (2018) as the fourth Englishman to win this title.
Rory McIlroy finished as the runner-up for a second year running, to cap off his fifth straight Race to Dubai title as he ties Colin Montgomerie's long-standing record of eighth Race to Dubai wins.
The Northern Irishman needed to finish solo second to guarantee he finished higher than Eugenio Chacarra on the season-long standings, and duly delivered with a bogey-free 67 on Sunday to end his week two shots ahead of the Spaniard, who ended his year tied third alongside Oliver Lindell.
A small consolation to that is that Chacarra does still earn the top PGA Tour Dual Membership card, with Patrick Reed, Casey Jarvis, Jayden Schaper, Daniel Hillier, Jacob Skov Olesen, Bernd Wiesberger, Andy Sullivan, Oliver Lindell and Joe Dean also part of the ten.
