The top two players in the world – Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy – go head to head over the iconic Race to Dubai trophy ahead of the climax to the European Tour season.
World Number One Donald is bidding to become the first player in history to top the money lists of the European Tour and the PGA Tour and leads the Race to Dubai with €3,856,394. Victories in the WGC – Accenture Match Play, the BMW PGA Championship and the Barclays Scottish Open on The European Tour, in addition to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic on the US PGA Tour, have taken him to the top of the world order.
Donald has only finished outside the top ten on three occasions during The 2011 European Tour season, and a finish within the top nine, or no worse than tied ninth with one other person, over the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates would see him crowned European Number One.
World Number Two McIlroy lies €789,789 behind Donald in second place in the Race to Dubai and is looking to finish a stunning year, during which he won his first Major Championship, on a high. He too has enjoyed the best season of his career, finishing in the top ten 12 times on The European Tour International Schedule including wins in the US Open Championship at Congressional and then last week in the UBS Hong Kong Open. He has not finished outside the top four on The European Tour since the US PGA Championship in August. But he still needs to win this week to have any chance of catching Donald.
The top four players in the world are all at Jumeirah Golf Estates and all are firing on all cylinders with Lee Westwood, the 2009 champion, winning last weekend in Sun City, and Martin Kaymer, last year’s winner of The Race to Dubai, victorious on his last European Tour outing in the WGC – HSBC Champions.
They line up in an elite field of 58 for the climax to The Race to Dubai and the greatest show on Earth.
