Best bets
3pts each-way Tyrrell Hatton @ 6/1
1pt each-way Matt Wallace @ 18/1
1pt each-way Thriston Lawrence @ 22/1
O.5pt each-way Antoine Rozner @ 50/1
0.5pt each-way Adrian Meronk @ 50/1
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It’s supposed to be a thriller, the $10m end-of-season reward for the elite of the DP World Tour, but sadly a bit of the gloss has rubbed off it, the fat lady’s already warming up and the Race To Dubai (what we oldies used to call the Order of Merit) is all but done and dusted.
Blame Rory McIlroy – he’s so far ahead in the year-long points race that a third consecutive title – and sixth overall – is but a formality. Rory has a 1785-point lead over closest pursuer Thriston Lawrence with 2000 available this week, so if Lawrence wins and McIlroy flops disastrously, it’s still, just, game on but we’re drifting into the realms of fantasy if you think that’s going to happen in a tournament he’s won twice before.
The Greg Norman-designed Earth course at Jumeirah Estates, a driver’s paradise of 7675 yards, par 72, suits 4/1 favourite McIlroy better than Yas Links and he may well dominate a weaker-than-usual field missing Jon Rahm, a three-time winner who wanted to stay with his newly extended family, as well as Matt Fitzpatrick, champion in 2016 and 2020, and last year’s winner Nicolai Højgaard, both of whom failed to qualify.
So not one of the last eight champions is playing in Dubai and you have to go back to McIlroy’s 2015 victory to find anyone who has moved the Earth and emerged triumphant. It is not what the DPWT would have wanted.
One big threat will be Tyrrell Hatton who finished in front of McIlroy on their two latest meetings, at the Dunhill Links Pro-Am and in Abu Dhabi. He won in Scotland and would have won last week if 125/1 shot Paul Waring had read the script. As a guy who had won only once in a long career and that six years ago, Waring wasn’t supposed to birdie the last two holes but the man from Birkenhead wasn’t for passing and he will now realise a long-held dream by playing the PGA Tour next year.
Hatton also finished ahead of McIlroy the last time they met on Earth two years ago, Hatton T2 (his second runners-up finish in the Championship), McIlroy fourth. I know it sounds as if the needle has got stuck as I’m putting Hatton up for the third time in a row but, as a LIV player, he has a big incentive to do well as he needs a bunch of Ryder Cup points from the few chances he gets to qualify for next September’s team.
With BMW PGA champion Billy Horschel coming over from the States, it’s far from a two-horse race but after watching Tommy Fleetwood’s and Shane Lowry’s pitiful, error-strewn golf at the business end in Abu Dhabi where both frittered away winning chances, I cannot bring myself to put either forward.
At bigger odds, I would sooner be with Matt Wallace and South African Lawrence, T2 and T5 respectively here last year and in compelling form in Abu Dhabi last week when Wallace finished T3 and Lawrence right behind in T6.
Lawrence is unlikely to putt as poorly again while Wallace desperately wants to be on the next Ryder Cup team. Sharing sixth with Lawrence at the weekend was fast-finishing Antoine Rozner. The bearded Frenchman may not be the most reliable putter but as that strong showing in Abu Dhabi followed a fourth in Korea he is in a good place and this might be his time.
At 50/1 he’s fairly priced as is Dubai resident Adrian Meronk at the same odds. Before he joined LIV, the lanky Pole would have been less than half this week’s odds but he’s a bit of a forgotten man since switching sides. But form is temporary, class is forever – so they say – and he did show tip-top form (second and tenth) in the two Dubai tournaments at the start of the year.
Tom McKibbin, Joaquin Neimann and Bob MacIntyre are three more likely to be in the mix during an intriguing four days when, surprise, surprise, it’s going to be non-stop sunny with temperatures around 32C. Wish I was there? You bet!
BUTTERFIELD BERMUDA CHAMPIONSHIP
Best bets
1.5pts each-way Mackenzie Hughes @ 16/1
1pt each-way David Lipsky @ 80/1
1pt each-way Kevin Yu @ 40/1
1pt each-way Séamus Power @ 16/1
1pt each-way Lucas Glover @ 25/1
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A 41-year-old, Camilo Villegas, won the last Bermuda Championship, an English journeyman, Paul Waring, beat McIlroy and Co in Abu Dhabi just shy of his 40th birthday, and a 67-year-old, the unstoppable Bernhard Langer, won the Champions Tour curtain-closer on Sunday. Are the greybeards trying to tell us something?
There are plenty of old bones lining up in Bermuda at the government-run municipal Port Royal GC and, faced with one of the shortest courses on the PGA circuit, a par 71 of just 6828 yards, they can’t wait to get at it.
With 24 under the winning score for Villegas last year and ace putter Brendon Todd in 2019, birdies are there for the taking except when the ever-present wind takes a nasty turn and gives the updated, tree-lined Trent Jones Snr layout some teeth. It is forecast to blow up to 24mph during what will be a cloudy, showery four days so this will not be the usual easy ride.
Last week the newer kids on the block dominated with Austin Eckroat, 25, winning for the second time. This week the older generation should show their hand.
Expect Seamus Power, the winner two years ago and inside the top 13 in four of his five latest starts, to shine along with 2009 US Open champion Lucas Glover and his fellow 44-year-old Kevin Streelman. Brian Gay won this three years back when not far short of 50 so don’t be out off by age: ask Langer, it’s only a number!
Glover has been in solid form (two third places) as has tidy David Lipsky who tied sixth at the World Wide Tech on Sunday after a second at the Procore a few weeks before.
Canadian Mackenzie Hughes is arguably the best putter in the field and this tournament panders to masters of the flat stick. Eighth and fourth on his two most recent starts, Mac is due another victory and there’s nobody to frighten him in Bermuda.
Of the younger set, Matti Schmid and Las Vegas runner-up Doug Ghim have been making waves and Taiwanese prospect Kevin Yu, T3 in Bermuda when Power won, got off the mark in the Sanderson Farms last month.
Don’t be surprised if he and Nico Echevarria, another recent breakthrough winner, double their tally before too long. Echevarria spurned a good chance of a quick double in Mexico but that W next to his name is a great confidence-builder.
For all your bets on the DP World Tour, visit our dedicated golf betting page.
