Golf
DP World Tour Championship preview: Europeans fancied in Dubai
The European Tour reaches its culmination on Sunday with the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
One of the strongest fields in recent memory is teeing it up at the Earth Course and with the Race To Dubai as well as the tournament title this week up for grabs, we’re set for a brilliant four days of golfing action.
Here is our look ahead as two Europeans are fancied to go well.
Wiesberger a tasty bet
If there has been one criticism of this event in the past, it’s that not all the big guns turn up, and while defending champion Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy are absent, that doesn’t take away from the fact this is one of the deepest and highest quality fields in the European Tour’s history.
Former Masters winner and Race To Dubai leader Patrick Reed heads the betting at 9/1, while BMW PGA champion Tyrrell Hatton (11/1), last week’s PGA Tour winner Viktor Hovland (12/1), Tommy Fleetwood (14/1) and PGA champion Collin Morikawa (14/1) are also in attendance. All have the credentials to go well here, with Reed the rightful favourite given his big tournament credentials, but they might have to play second fiddle to BERND WIESBERGER at 25/1.
The big-hitting Austrian has been in very good form in recent weeks with a fourth at the RSM Classic in America, before a very encouraging eighth at the Golf In Dubai Championship last week. Whether playing well at last week’s venue will correlate to playing well here is yet to be known, but both courses are designed by Greg Norman and Wiesberger will have taken great heart from the way he played last week. He opened up with a pedestrian two-under-par 70, which left him a full nine shots off the early lead of Andy Sullivan, so to have been 17-under-par for the last three rounds showed his game really is trending in the right direction.
Wiesberger didn’t start quickly at the RSM Classic either and providing he can get off to a decent start on Thursday, he has the tools to contend here. He has three top-20 finishes at this tournament, including a tie for fourth in 2017, so there’s plenty to suggest he’s a big player this week.
2018 winner fancied to contend
Certain players have a knack of playing well in certain places and that can certainly be said for DANNY WILLETT and Dubai. Of his seven European Tour victories, two have come in Dubai at the 2016 Dubai Desert Classic and at the 2018 running of this event. He also finished in a tie for fifth in last year’s event, showing the Earth Course is one he’s clearly very comfortable on.
Results this year haven’t been great, but a tie for 25th at the Masters was a more than fair effort and then at last week’s Golf In Dubai Championship, he once again showed that being back in Dubai brings out the best in him. He opened with two 67s and had it not been for a third round 73, he would have finished much closer to the lead than he did. His three other rounds were more than encouraging and at a course he has very solid form at, 45/1 looks well worth a second look.
