DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Rory McIlroy captured the season-long Race to Dubai golf title on the European tour for a record-tying eighth time by finishing second at the World Tour Championship won by Tyrrell Hatton on Sunday.
McIlroy joined Colin Montgomerie atop the all-time list of winners of the previously named “Order of Merit” award, adding another significant achievement to the resume of a player who has done pretty much everything in golf — notably the career Grand Slam.
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Hatton shot 6-under 66 to win the season-ending event by five strokes on 15-under par, but the main focus was on the tense fight for the year-long points title between McIlroy and young Spaniard Eugenio Chacarra, who arrived in Dubai atop the standings just ahead of the Northern Irishman.
In a turbulent final round in which Chacarra played one group behind McIlroy, the pair regularly exchanged places in the top two spots of the projected standings. McIlroy won out, shooting a bogey-free 67 that ultimately left him in outright second place.
Chacarra needed to eagle the par-5 18th — or get some unlikely help from a couple of players finishing their rounds after him — but neither scenario transpired. He shot 69 and tied for third, dropping him to second place in the Race to Dubai standings by the small matter of around 125 points.
McIlroy has now won the season-long title for the last five years, as well as in 2012, ‘14 and ’15, and he was congratulated by Chacarra outside the scorer's hut.
“Deserved winner,” Chacarra said, before McIlroy made a video call to his family — “stress, stress, stress,” he was heard saying — and then gave an emotional TV interview in which he dedicated the title to his father, Gerry, who has been in hospital for the last two months.
“He underwent a huge operation at the end of September and is recovering well, thankfully,” McIlroy said, before adding tearfully: “When I left to come to the Middle East, I went up to Cleveland to see him and he said to me, ‘Go win the Race to Dubai.’ This one's for him."
Chacarra said he was proud of the way he took the fight to McIlroy on his first appearance at the World Tour Championship and in his first full season on the European tour.
“I just came (up) short,” the 26-year-old Chacarra said. "That’s the beauty of golf.
“Obviously, when you play with the best in the world ... he’s played here 14, 15 times, you knew it was going to be tough, and he had a better day than I did.”
A consolation for Chacarra in his breakthrough year was becoming one of 10 players to secure places on next season’s PGA Tour that were available to European tour members not otherwise exempt.
Three of them — including Chacarra — were formerly on the LIV golf circuit. The others are Patrick Reed and Bernd Wiesberger.
Players typically are banned by the PGA Tour for one year dating to their last LIV appearance. Reed chose in January not to renew his LIV deal and was eligible to return to the PGA Tour for the FedEx Cup Fall, but opted instead to try to win the Race to Dubai title. He was tied for the 31st on Sunday and finished fourth in the season-long points standings.
Wiesberger returned to the European tour in 2024 after playing two seasons at LIV.
Also getting a card for the PGA Tour were South Africans Casey Jarvis and Jayden Schaper, Daniel Hillier of New Zealand, Jakob Skov Olesen of Denmark, Oliver Lindell of Finland, and English players Andy Sullivan and Joe Dean.
Just six years ago, Dean was delivering groceries during the COVID-19 pandemic. He kept doing it for nearly four years to help fund his golf career when he didn’t have a card, and now he is heading across the Atlantic.
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