Sunday brought confirmation that Rory McIlroy is this year's Race to Dubai champion, simultaneously rewarding the player who has performed best in DP World Tour events this season, while exposing some niggles with the system as it is.
Personally, I'm not at all concerned by the fact that the crown can be placed atop anyone's head before the season finishes. Sometimes, someone is deserving of that and having won two Rolex Series events and played so well in three of the four majors, McIlroy fits that description.
The greater issue for me is where the Race to Dubai really ranks in the priorities of players like McIlroy and Jon Rahm, who both decided not to play for big points in South Africa. For Rahm, skipping the Nedbank equated to giving up any hope of winning the Harry Vardon trophy for just a second time, which already feels like too low a number for a player of his talents.
How do you solve it? Perhaps by holding successive events in the Middle East to finish the season, which is exactly what will happen next year. Both of them are set to offer enormous purses, first in Abu Dhabi and then in Dubai, so while many have expressed frustration at how 2023 has panned out (and some of them have done so while wilfully ignoring changes that have been made), 2024 should serve up a more fitting climax.
At 11/2 he's perhaps a shade bigger than I'd expected and should head the betting, but all of the market leaders run the risk of being underdone and while that didn't stop Max Homa last week, it's not what I'd consider ideal.
As such, I'll take them on with MIN WOO LEE, already a Rolex Series winner and a player who has come a heck of a long way in the subsequent two years.
Lee has cracked the top 50 again thanks to several top-class displays in 2023, starting with second place in the desert. From there he's established himself on the PGA Tour where he'll enjoy full status as of January, contending in The PLAYERS and then going on to finish fifth in the US Open, also playing nicely for 18th in the US PGA.
Just about as long as they come off the tee and with exquisite touch around the greens, the Australian only needs to dial in his wedge game to become a genuinely world-class player and while still inconsistent, in general that department has continued to improve as he tries to keep pace with his sister, Minjee, arguably the best ball-striker in women's golf.
Min Woo can take the next step up in his own career at the Earth Course, where he's been 16th and 12th in two starts so far – despite little help from his usually reliable putter. On debut he topped the par-five stats and ranked second in strokes-gained tee-to-green, a formula which should've seen him contending behind Collin Morikawa, and then last year he again ranked higher in the tee-to-green stats than his eventual finishing position.
While some felt Lowry kept Meronk out of the Ryder Cup side the truth is that Nicolai Hojgaard and Ludvig Aberg did, and we can all do without going over that debate again. Ultimately, these are three enormously talented players and Luke Donald had to omit one of them.
Meronk though has certainly felt a sense of injustice, understandably so, and it fuelled a fourth win in little more than a year after a dazzling finish in Spain. Granted, he did make everything that week, but in general his long-game has remained solid and that was the case in the Nedbank Challenge where one bad round kept him out of the places.
The Earth Course definitely suits him better. Meronk, a Dubai resident during winter, has practised here a lot and knows what damage his imperious driving can do, which we saw when he carded a closing 66 on debut and returned to go one better with a third-round 65 last year.
While he fell over the line to win the Barbasol Championship before stealing the Irish Open with a late surge on a strange final day, Norrman has ultimately won twice in 10 starts since striking form this summer and has no real pressure on him here.
Prodigious off the tee, his driving was excellent on his Sun City debut last week, as it has been almost every time he's played since July, and that club should open up all kinds of opportunities at a big, far more straightforward golf course which features four par-fives and a driveable par-four.
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