By Kent Gray
World No.1 George Groves will take a two-stroke lead into the final round of the inaugural EDGA Dubai Finale which is being played alongside the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

The Englishman, who has had a medical condition since birth called Erb’s Palsy which caused paralysis to his left arm, fired an impressive five-over 77 in his opening round on Earth Friday.

The World Ranking for Golfers with Disability (WR4GD) No.1, fresh from winning the 2019 English Disability Open over the Gainsborough course at Stoke by Nayland, was two shots clear of countryman Mike Browne (79) in the eight-player field. American Christopher Biggins occupied solo third after an 80 on the same layout being used by the field for the European Tour’s Race to Dubai decider.

There were some impressive shot-making in the opening round of the European Disabled Golf Association (EDGA) administered championship, including the championship opening tee shot from Swede Joakim Bjorkman. Check it out:

Flushed! https://t.co/JxGVdCujFq

— Golf Digest ME (@GolfDigestME) November 22, 2019

Bjorkman, who has Achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder that causes disproportionate short stature, trails the field after eventually signing for a 91. And how about this shot from Browne, a former Royal Artillery Gunner who had 22 (unsuccessful!) limb salvage operations after badly breaking his leg in a training exercise:

It wasn’t anywhere else ?️@edgagolf #DPWTC pic.twitter.com/fhbiZdX8rO

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 22, 2019

While you mull over Browne’s 79 – have you ever shot that off the back tees at Earth, or any course for that matter – consider his explanation of his injury on the EDGA website: “I was training in a place called Longmore in the UK. All I did basically was break my leg. I was on a training exercise and my leg collapsed…if you could imagine a bamboo stick when you crush it from the bottom up, well it was like that with my leg when I landed. I just thought that was it, you know, I’ll be back in six weeks, not a drama, back in the job doing what I was doing.”

It turns out it was far worse. A bad infection, which specialists are unsure whether he picked up in hospital or from the metalwork in his leg, consumed all the muscles around his knee.

“They actually took the knee joint out and tried to fuse my Tibia plateau to my Fema. So they had to break my shinbone, and stretch it about seven centimetres.” Ouch.

After two years in an Ilazarov frame with 52 wires running through his leg and daily one-millimetre adjustments to stretch his shinbone, the amputee now calmly says, “In hindsight – luckily it didn’t work.”

The final round of the 36-hole event is scheduled for early Saturday ahead of ‘moving day’ at JGE.

The WR4GD is administered by the USGA and R&A.

EDGA’s @BrendanLawlor97 meets @RCabreraBello ahead of the EDGA Dubai Finale.pic.twitter.com/9QTd9xTnL6

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 21, 2019

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By Kent Gray
Jon Rahm hopes getting a little normality back in his life can negate a six-week layoff between competitive rounds as he looks to win the DP World Tour Championship for the second time in three years.

The 25-year-old Spaniard hasn’t played since defending his Open de Espana title in early October so is unsure how his game will hold up over this final, four-day circumnavigation of Earth where he can become European Tour No.1 for the first time if he wins and Race to Dubai leader Bernd Wiesberger finishes T-2 or lower.

While he mightn’t be as game sharp as others, Rahm does bring a brilliant 2019 record to Jumeirah Golf Estates is including a third PGA Tour title at the Zurich Classic in April and his fourth and fifth European Tour at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and his home open.

Maybe better still he’s brought a fresh perspective on life courtesy of some much-needed time off with fiancé Kelley Cahill.

“We spend so much of our life making decisions just for me and for my golf game, that it was nice just to, you know, tell her for a month straight, ‘what do you want to do,’ right, instead of what do I need to do,” Said Rahm.

“It was very nice to be able to do that. I wish I could do it every day of the year, but golf, it’s somewhat of a selfish sport in that sense. We didn’t go on any trips or do anything extravagant like that. Just actually tried to be at home for a month and enjoy time with our friends and family around there and live as normal a life as possible.”

Rahm didn’t touch a club for a month and found the time off, some of it finalising the details of the couple’s upcoming wedding, cathartic. It was timely too with 2020 promising to be especially hectic with the four majors, the Olympics in Toyko and the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.

“I needed it. Honestly, I needed it. After Spain, I stayed home for a week, actually, and \ after that, I think it was three more weeks in Arizona where I truly didn’t even step on a golf course.

“You know, with the year we have coming up, with basically ever since I became a good amateur in Spain, it’s almost been like 10 straight years of nonstop. Never have had a break like that, and you know, professional golf is demanding.

“It was more like a future thing, knowing that with me getting married in Christmas, and the year we’re going to have, I needed a break at some point, and I feel like that was the only time I could get a break to recharge a little bit and make sure, you know, I’m going to be fresh for next year.”

The world No. 5 anticipates some ring rust but obviously has Rolex Series event pedigree and the power game that can bring Greg Norman’s Earth layout to its knees, weather dependant.

“I really don’t know how it’s going to go. I’m hoping it’s going to be good. I am feeling good. Feeling rested and looking forward to the week,” he said.

“It’s definitely a ball-striker’s golf course, and that’s obviously what suits me. My strength of the game is off the tee, and it’s a course where if you hit it long off the tee, you’re going to give yourself a lot of chances, and I think that will be the biggest aspect of it. There’s obviously many ways to shoot low around here.”

So are you happy being the third-placed hunter behind Tommy Fleetwood or would you prefer going into the week with a bullseye on your back like Wiesberger?

“I’d rather be the front man, honestly. You don’t necessarily have to win. You just need to play good. But I’m here to win, and hopefully I just get it done and not have to think about possible consequences about it.”

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By Kent Gray
Jumeriah Golf Estates plays host to the European Tour’s season decider for the 11th time this week with five players still in the hunt for the Race to Dubai title. Here’s six things you need to know about the $8 million DP World Tour Championship which begins on the Earth course at JGE on Thursday morning.

RELATED: Thursday’s first-round tee times at JGE

Down to the wire for Wiesberger
After victories at the Made in Denmark, Scottish Open and Italian Open this season, a feat all the more remarkable after a wrist injury condemned the Austrian to seven months on the sidelines last year, Bernd Wiesberger has destiny in his own hands this week.

The Race to Dubai pole-sitter can become European No.1 for the first time by winning on Earth this week or finishing solo second. Few would deny him the glory, but four men will surely try…

The Chasers
The DPWTC winner will cash the biggest first prize in tournament golf, $3 million, and more than 2,000 rankings points.

The money would be nice but it’s the second number that will motivate Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick, the quartet mathematically capable of eclipsing Wiesberger to become European Tour No.1 in this final, four-round circumnavigation of Earth.

Open champion Shane Lowry (Getty Images)

There are numerous points permutations heading into the final Rolex Series event of 2019 but basically Fleetwood, Rahm and Lowry can win the R2D title with victory this week providing Wiesberger finishes lower than solo second (if Fleetwood wins), lower than T-2 with one other (if Rahm wins) and lower than T-4 with one other (if Fitzpatrick wins). Fitzpatrick has the lowest odds as he’d also need Fleetwood to finish lower than solo second.

Tommy’s Impeccable Timing

Fleetwood’s timing has been impeccable. With his emotional playoff victory at last week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South African, the 28-year-old Englishman not only netted $2.5 million – the biggest first prize in European Tour history until this week – but also soared eight places up to second in the R2D standings.

The fan favourite will clinch the season title if he wins this week and Wiesberger finishes lower than solo second, and/or with a top placing if a series of final placings involving the Austrian, Rahm, Lowry and Fitzpatrick goes his way.

It wouldn’t surprise if Fleetwood gets up. He won the R2D in 2017, had a good chance to defend in 2018 before surrendering the title to good pal Francesco Molinari and comes into JGE on the back of a remarkably consistent run.

In the 22 months between his fourth European Tour win – the 2018 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – and last week’s fifth triumph in South Africa, Fleetwood has rattled off three-second place finishes and 10 top 10s to move back inside the top 10 of the OWGR.

Quality Everywhere
The field for the season decider has been trimmed from 60 players previously to 50 this year and quality abounds. Major champions Francesco Molinari, Danny Willett, Justin Rose, Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy (Lowry is also the defending Open champion) can’t win the R2D but are legitimate threats for the Tour Championship’s $3 million payday – and to throw a spanner in the R2D abacus.

McIlroy enters the week fresh from his WGC win in Shanghai. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

After winning $15 million for sealing a second FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour and joining the PGA Tour’s exclusive $50 million career earnings club after winning the WGC HSBC Champions in Shanghai earlier this month, McIlroy isn’t short of a bob, nor form. His play, and press conferences, are not to be missed this week.

Fleetwood, Rahm, Willett, Rose, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren are former Rolex Series title winners in the field. After a week to freshen up from his victory in an epic six-man playoff at the Turkish Airlines Open, don’t be surprised in Hatton features on the leaderboard late Sunday.

Rookie Race
There is considerable Middle East interest in the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie-of-the-Year race which will also be decided on Earth. Two of the four players still in the fight are Scot Robert ‘Bob’ MacIntyre, a former MENA Tour winner, and Spaniard Adri Arnaus, now a Dubai-resident.

MacIntyre with the spoils of success at the 2017 Sahara Kuwait Championship on the MENA Tour.

American Kurt Kitayama and Italy’s Guido Migliozzi are the other players contending. Going into the week, MacIntyre, Kitayama, Arnaus and Migliozzi occupy 11th, 12th, 37th and 40th spots in the R2D standings respectively.

EDGA Dubai Finale
On the undercard this week is the the European Disabled Golf Association (EDGA) Dubai Finale, a new 36-hole event for golfers of determination on Friday and Saturday.

The tournament will feature six players from World Ranking for Golfers with Disability, including English pair Mike Browne and George Grove, Irishman Brendan Lawlor, France’s Charles-Henri Quélin, Chris Biggins of America, and Australian Geoff Nicholas, plus two wildcard invitations of Joakim Bjorkman and Chad Pfeifer.

Irishman Brendan Lawlor.

The post Race to Dubai decider: Six things you need to know appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Ranked 113th last month and way outside the cut mark of top-50 that would earn him a spot in Dubai, Sharma has improved to 61st in the subsequent four tournaments. That run was kickstarted by a tied seventh-place finish in the Italian Open, and on Sunday, at the Turkish Airlines Open, he finished with a superb bogey-free eight-under-par 64 to replicate that tied seventh finish again.

Those efforts have earned him a place in the Nedbank Challenge, the penultimate event of the season where only the top-60 players from the Race to Dubai get in (the 76th ranked player is in this week to complete the field of 60).

The 23-year-old was the toast of golf world early last year, when he won the Joburg Open and the Maybank Championship, and then led the WGC-Mexico Championship against some of the biggest names in the game going into the final round.

But after playing the Masters last year on a dream special invitation, his career flight trajectory spiralled downwards for various reasons – the foremost being a punishing schedule that saw him play week after week in an effort to secure a PGA Tour card.

He did manage to finish 28th in the Race to Dubai in the end, but his ranking dropped from a career-high 64 to 330 at the end of September this year.

There were signs at this year’s Open Championship in Portrush that Sharma’s game was getting back in the groove. At the BMW PGA Championship, he finished T17, which could have been much better but for an ugly triple-bogey eight on the par-5 fourth hole on the opening day.

When he reached Rome for the Italian Open, the gun, as far as qualifying for the DP World Tour Championship is concerned, was against his head.

With his back against the wall, Sharma has turned into a birdie machine. In the 16 rounds since the Italian Open, he has made 81 birdies, which is second only to Joachim B Hansen’s 83 on the European Tour in that period.

“It’s been a while since I have felt this comfortable on the golf course. I have had some issues or the other and while I would get into a hot stretch once in a while and make a few birdies in a bunch, I was not making enough of them,” said Sharma, who has now improved to No237 in the world in the past one month.

“I changed my driver (to a PING G410) in Rome, with which I am getting a lower ball flight and I have been able to hit more fairways. And my iron play has been really good in this last one month.

“I desperately want to make it to the DP World Tour Championship. Being in Dubai at this time of the year shows that you are among the elite of the European Tour. If you make it, it shows that irrespective of the results, you have had a good season.”

Sharma feels he has a slight advantage at the Gary Player Country Club this week. Johannesburg, and South Africa, is very close to his heart, having secured his first international win in late 2017 at the Joburg Open, which was played at Randpark Golf Club.

“I love South Africa and the reasons are obvious. But apart from the happy memories, there are a few other things that should help me in Sun City,” added Sharma.

“My caddie, Dean Smith, is from South Africa, and he knows the course well. I have also played it last year and I am more aware of its intricacies and the effects of altitude there. And most importantly, I am playing well and will take a lot of confidence from Turkey to there.

“As is evident from my scores, I am making a lot of birdies, which is always a good thing. I now have to sharpen up a few things and try to minimize the mistakes that are leading to bogeys. I seem to have a couple of holes these last few events that I have played badly.

“Hopefully, everything will come together and I will be flying in to Dubai next week.”

The $7.5 million Nedbank Challenge, which offers a whopping winner’s cheque of $2.5 million, starts on Thursday. The top-50 players in the Race to Dubai after that make it to the DP World Tour Championship at the Earth course in Jumeirah Golf Estates the following week.

The post Birdie machine Sharma focused on making it Race to Dubai finale appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
Irishman Brendan Lawlor was given the honour of marking a month to go until the 11th DP World Tour Championship on Sunday, hitting a ceremonial tee shot off the 1st tee on Earth at Jumeirah Golf Estates to mark the occasion.

Lawlor is one of eight golfers of determination set to compete in the inaugural EDGA Dubai Finale, a 36-hole tournament that will be played in conjunction with the DPWTC using the same course set-up as the European Tour’s elite players.

The 22-year-old hit the shot in the presence of His Excellency Sheikh Fahim Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Emirates Golf Federation, and later hosted a coaching clinic for the Students of Determination from Dubai Heights Academy and the UAE’s U13 Boys squad who recently won the bronze medal at the Pan Arab Golf Championships in Egypt.

It was a memorable day at @JGEGolf as we officially marked ‘One Month To Go’ until the DP World Tour Championship with some very special guests ?

Register for free entry or hospitality tickets here: https://t.co/ekG3eJCI9Z#dpwtc #racetodubai #rolexseries @BrendanLawlor97 pic.twitter.com/xE9WoEbcxU

— DP World Tour Championship (@dpwtc) October 20, 2019

The introduction of the EDGA tournament marks the first time a golfers of determination event has been hosted in conjunction with a European Tour event in the region, following the successful EDGA Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club, which Lawlor won.

New European Tour Middle East Tom Phillips welcomed Lawlor to JGE.

“It’s great to have Brendan with us to celebrate our one-month countdown and we look forward to welcoming him and seven other Golfers of Determination back here to Jumeirah Golf Estates for the inaugural EDGA Dubai Finale,” Phillips said.

“Golf has always been an inclusive game and we are very proud that the European Tour is a driving force in opening up the sport to as many people as possible.”

The EDGA Dubai Finale dovetails nicely with the UAE’s official Year of Tolerance and DP World’s commitment to driving an inclusive and tolerant culture across its business, sponsorship platform and the wider UAE community.

“DP World aims to build a better future for everyone and it’s great to see, first-hand, children of all ages, backgrounds, genders and abilities playing a sport that means so much to our business,” said Mohammed Al Muallem, CEO and Managing Director of DP World.

“Golf is much more than just a game, it’s a platform for us to inspire people through the DP World Tour Championship and our partnership with the Emirates Golf Federation to build a more inclusive society.”

This year’s DPWTC will see the top 50 players on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai Rankings – down from 60 – eligible to compete in the prestigious event over the Earth course from November 21-24. The tournament will also boast the richest first prize in golf with the champion receiving a mouth-watering US$3 million.

An estimated 65,000 spectators are expected to attend the free event with a further 500 million people tuning in across the globe to see the action unfold on television.

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