DP World Tour Championship 2026: Will McIlroy equal Colin Montgomerie’s record?

Dubai: The DP World Tour Championship arrives at Jumeirah Golf Estates this week with a field that is a little thinner than usual. Defending champion Fitzpatrick has withdrawn, alongside Lowry, MacIntyre and Min Woo Lee. Even so, we have a brilliant field for one of the best annual events this great city hosts. Expect another packed crowd, especially over the weekend, and fantastic, well-organised fun. The Earth Course is a proper test. At more than 7,700 yards and playing to a par of 72, it rewards length and elite ball-striking above all else. The greens are vast, while the closing par five over water has a habit of making and breaking champions. Twelve of the 13 winners before 2025 were major champions. This course has a way of finding the very best. The Race to Dubai is going down to the wire. With 2,000 points on offer for the winner this week, a figure that dwarfs the total at a typical tournament, the final standings could look very different by Sunday evening. Chacarra leads McIlroy by 534 points and Reed by 715, but neither gap is safe. McIlroy wins the title with a victory and Chacarra finishing outside the top two. Reed needs at least a second-place finish and some help. Even Rahm, sitting sixth in the standings, is mathematically alive. An eighth Race to Dubai title for McIlroy would equal Colin Montgomerie’s all-time record. The permutations are many, and that is what makes this week so watchable. Now to the picks. Jon Rahm is the standout name this week. He arrives fresh from winning the Abu Dhabi Championship at 23 under par, his sixth Rolex Series title. He has won here three times before, in 2017, 2019 and 2022, and his ball-striking and range suit the Earth Course extremely well. Once Rahm builds momentum, he becomes a golfing juggernaut. On a course he knows this well, stopping him will be no easy task. McIlroy is the sentimental pick, and not without merit. He has three wins here, lost a play-off in 2025 and has the added motivation of history within reach. The concern is that he has not won since April and faded late in Abu Dhabi. But let us not forget that, based on recent major performances, this is the best golfer in the world. He has the ability to raise his level as the pressure mounts. As the saying goes, form is temporary, class is permanent. Tyrrell Hatton is quietly interesting. Runner-up in Abu Dhabi last week and one shot behind Fitzpatrick here in 2016, he is a man with nothing to lose in the Race to Dubai. He possesses a maverick quality that can make him genuinely unplayable on his day, though his temperament has been known to work against him. Players who cannot win a season-long title often play their most liberated golf at the final event. Expect boom or bust, in spectacular fashion. Our wildcard is Ryan Fox. The reigning Open champion is a big hitter who suits everything about this layout. His form since Birkdale has been quiet, but course fit counts for a lot here and Fox has the game to go very deep. One to watch. Our call: Rahm to win the tournament. He is the form player, knows this course better than almost anyone in the field and has his trademark short, punchy swing in peak motion. As for the Race to Dubai, the mathematics are complex enough that we will leave that one to the man with the abacus. What we can say with certainty is that the golf will be brilliant and the atmosphere euphoric. If you have booked your tickets, you are in for a treat. And if you have not, what are you waiting for? --- Nicholas Bull is a British real estate entrepreneur who has called Dubai home for 12 years. A lifelong sports fanatic, he talks all things sport and property.