DP World Tour Championship scores 2022: Jon Rahm won for the third time, Rory McIlroy won the scoring title
Jon Rahm starts the week Speak out about the Official World Golf Ranking. He ended it by collecting all the points obtained at the DP World Tour Championship and winning his third title of the season and his third DP World Tour championship in the final six editions of the event.
Earlier in the week, Rahm was adamant about beating some of the best players in the world at the DP World Tour Championship than beating a bunch of average players at the RSM Classic. Rahm gets 22 points for beating Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Viktor Hovland, while whoever wins RSM later in the day on the PGA Tour side will receive 38.
Rahm has gone against his own logic and made beating the top players — there are seven others in the field that rank in the top 30 in OWGR — look pretty easy. After starting 70-66-65, Rahm hit 67 on Sunday while playing alongside US Open champion Fitzpatrick. Combined, the two have now won five of the last seven DP World Tour Championships.
After being eliminated at the age of 33, Rahm went home at the age of 34 to win the trophy. In his under-20s, he beat Hatton and Alex Noren by two and McIlroy by four.
“Because of COVID, I never got a chance to defend my 2019 title, and although I decided not to come last year, I’ve come with the mentality that, no one has beaten me in the last two years. , so they’ll have to beat me again,” Rahm said.
Rahm has won the tournament three of his last four times. He’s under 72 and has beaten 212 of 217 opponents in those four starts. As mentioned, he didn’t play it in 2020 as the defending champion nor passed last year for the 2021 edition.
Rahm’s view on how OWGR scores top in minor course events (only 50 golfers competed this week in Dubai) is justifiable. And while this isn’t the place for an in-depth analysis of the Official World Golf Rankings, I don’t believe there should be that much of a disparity between the number of points allotted to winners in an event where you have to beat seven other top 30 players and points are distributed to the winner in an event where (regardless of how many golfers are on the course) Brian Harman is the favorite.
Despite that, Rahm has no shortage of OWGR points. After attending the Mexican Open, the Spanish Open and this event, he remains firmly in the top 5 in the world until 2023 and there is a lot of buzz surrounding him going into next year. how he finished this tournament. Over the past six years, Rahm has won two or three OWGR events. He is also the first player to win this particular event three times, and that marks the seven-event streak in 2022 that he the worst finish is T15 and the remaining six are in the top eight.
Rahm was mostly buoyed by his batting during that period, a club that let him down in early 2022. This week in Dubai was no different as he finished second on the pitch in terms of numbers. sticks reached on the way to victory.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I hit 12 under 12 and how badly I hit it from tee off at the weekend,” Rahm said. “I was able to manage really well. I think a lot of times when I threw the ball out, my wedge game saved me. On the pitch at the weekend, I didn’t know what my stats were. But within 10 feet, I was really, really, really sure, and that’s always going to go forward. Whenever I’m on the fairway, my game of snooker feels great. .
“I kept being positive and picking my battles, and again, I think I shot as low as I could over the weekend to get this one.”
Despite the win, Rahm fell short in the season-long DP World Tour scoring race, where McIlroy, who just entered this week as No. 1 on that list, won. For McIlroy, this is his fourth title of his entire season with the European team after three FedEx Cups on the PGA Tour. However, this year marks the first time McIlroy has won both season-long races in the same year.
“It’s been seven years since I last did that [on the DP World Tour],” McIlroy said. “Obviously this is my fourth time, but it’s been a while. I’ve won three FedEx Cups since the last time I won, which was the Race to Dubai back then.
“That means a lot. … I’ve been a model of consistency throughout the year. A lot of times I’ve finished at the top. I think my worst performance in European events. The tour that I’m on this year is the 12th at the start of the year in Abu Dhabi. A really solid season with good performances. It would be nice to get a win there at the end of the year here. But obviously. Clearly Jon played an incredible tournament and totally deserved it.
“[I’m] really proud of my year and excited for 2023.”
“I’m absolutely as much a golfer as I used to be, and hopefully I can continue down that path,” he added.
Since 2011, there have been a total of 22 season-scoring titles on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, and McIlroy has won seven of them. He ended the year with 13 top-eight finishes in his last 16 starts worldwide.
Fleetwood and Fitzpatrick broke into the top five in Dubai as the DP World Tour season ended.
