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The upside of not handicapping your season-ending event like the PGA Tour does is that it provides a clearer picture of who the best golfer on your tour was throughout the year. The downside, at least for the DP World Tour this year, is that the season-long race can be over before the season-ending tournament begins.
Rory McIlroy has wrapped up his fifth Race to Dubai title ahead of this week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. He is nearly 2,100 points ahead of Jon Rahm, who is currently in second but does not have a chance to catch McIlroy even with a win at the DP World Tour Championship.
“It’s really nice to have my name on the Harry Vardon Trophy for the fifth time and just be one behind Seve and still a few behind [Colin Montgomerie],” said McIlroy on Tuesday. “You’re talking about the greats of the European game, and to be up alongside them is really … if someone had told 18-year-old Rory when I was making my professional debut in 2007 that I would have won five order of merits up to this point, I wouldn’t have believed them.
“Really, really cool. I certainly don’t take it for granted, and you know, it shows the consistency that I’ve played with over the last few years that even though I feel like I’ve had a good year, I don’t feel like I’ve had a great year, but I can still go ahead and achieve things like this.”
The truth is that McIlroy is having one of the two best years he’s ever had, according to Data Golf’s strokes gained metric (the other came in 2022). That has not resulted in a major either year, but it has resulted in a handful of wins, including one in January at the Dubai Desert Classic and one in July at the Scottish Open. Both of those, as well as three top-10 finishes at the major championships, contributed to McIlroy’s fifth Race to Dubai trophy.
McIlroy is one of just three golfers who have won the Race to Dubai — formerly the order of merit — five or…
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Source : cbssports
