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1-0; +0.60pts Tyrrell Hatton 3 points each-way 6/1 (1/5 6 places, general) 6th
Even the briefest glance at the history of winners in recent years gives you everything you need to know about this week's lucrative and prestigious DP World Tour Championship.
Just six players have shared the last 12 runnings of the limited-field event and, apart from the defending champion, each has won at least one major title, the half-dozen combining for an impressive total of 11 elite prizes.
While the odd rag comes to challenge for places, ultimately the top spot goes to the very best that European golf has to offer, with the top three often filled with the class of the game. Major champions Shane Lowry, Patrick Reed and Justin Rose have all been runner-up in recent times, whilst the likes of Lee Westwood (winner here in 2009 and six-times a major medallist), Tyrrell Hatton (multiple major top-10s) and Ian Poulter have contended strongly.
The 7600-yard Earth Course seems a world away from Valderrama, scene of the Volvo Masters, the previous tour championship until 2008, but the likes of Rose, Westwood and Poulter bring a connection. That surely is thanks to their ability to play art the highest level, with all three posting top-10 finishes at Wentworth and at the Dunhill Links, factors shared by Rahm, Fitzpatrick, Hatton and Willett, the latter two being champions at both events.
For the last few years the concluding event has followed Qatar and the Nedbank Challenge and players have by-and-large come onto Dubai in decent form, last year's champ defying (so far) the 'elite' bracket but arriving after finishing in second place behind Max Homa at the Gary Player club. Moving the Abu Dhabi Championship to a slot just in front of this event can only help cement that guideline, helped once again by Abu winners and contenders Westwood, Poulter, Rory, Fleetwood, lowry and Fitzpatrick. Yeah, there's a theme.
It's always helpful when half a field can be ruled out and with only 50 entrants, it makes life a lot easier.
Come here in form, be able to play desert conditions, have a link to the likes of Wentworth and St. Andrews, be a strong tee-to-green player and Bob is indeed....
The early 9/2 has now gone for Rory McIlroy and he currently shows at around 7/2. No surprises here as without Jon Rahm in the field he is the classiest element on show, although to be ultra-critical he has lacked a bit of sparkle with the irons, and whilst there are genuine excuses (Bryson's toughness at the US Open and Horschel's brilliance at Wentworth) the facts are that he failed to finish off chances in half-a-dozen events since the turn of Spring. Think Rahm just weeks ago in Spain. Easily the best player but one or two small slips and, well, it's happened just once too often
Still, Rory led the field off the tee last week and putted well enough to think that he has to contend at one of his favourite courses, particularly as he would need a nightmare to give away a strong position at the top of the Rolex rankings and plays with very little pressure this week.
Like all elite players, Rory somehow gets himself involved at the business end, as he did again in Abu Dhabi, despite a treble-bogey during the second round and a double on his final hole of the third. That 7 cost him a place inside the final group on Sunday and probably the trophy (hmmm, yeah, ok).
I can see the strong case for Fleetwood, who would genuinely deserve this after a strong run of form since the Olympics and whose ranking of 11th last week for tee-to-green is incredibly his worst figure since Pinehurst in June but he, like Lowry are just too hard to win with.
Strongest selection last week Robert Macintyre is going to win the 2025 Open Championship at Portrush and could need tougher conditions than he faces this week to prove his place at the very top, so it all boils down to the one-and-done for this week.
Tyrrell Hatton comes here with everything I need to think he is as much an each-way to nothing as Rory or Tommy might be, but with those important recent '1's besides his name.
He may be a love-or-hate character but wears his heart of his sleeve and he'd love to show the DPWT a thing or two, having appealed against his fines for jumping ship to the LIV Tour earlier in the year.
Forget all that and judge him on his current game.
Top-10 at Augusta in April seemed to kick the 33-year-old into shape and after a 26th (7th after three rounds) at the US Open, he gagged up at LIV Nashville for his first trophy in over three years, winning by six shots. A missed cut at Royal Troon was sandwiched with a third place at a tough LIV Andalucía (Valderrama, beaten just a single shot), and another one-stroke defeat behind Rahm at LIV UK.
Back home after a couple of weeks, Hatton failed to justify favouritism at The Belfry although led at halfway before continuing to push for legitimate Ryder Cup qualification via 10th at the Spanish Open and, subsequently, his third victory at the Alfred Dunhill Links, when a third-round 61 vaulted him into a one-shot lead, a margin he held on to despite wavering in the mid-section of his back-nine.
The seven-time European Tour champion returned last week after a month off to rank in sixth for tee-to-green - his third top-8 in a row - all backed up by solid figures in every part of his game. Over the last month, the selection has ranked 9th, 10th and 27th off-the-tee, 27th, 1st and 9th for approach play and 31st, 18th and 16th for strokes-gained-putting. In old money Hatton has finished no worse than 33rd for driving distance (even then, the mix of ADC courses makes this a tough table) 27th for accuracy off the peg, 13th in greens and 11th for putting average.
Those would do me but we can also add his suitability for the task ahead.
Winner, runner-up and fourth (twice) at Bay Hill as well as top finishes at Phoenix, Renaissance Club, and a pair of top-six finishes at The Open are plenty to be getting on with in terms of desert form but again I'm not sure there is a better correlation than his efforts at both Wentworth and the Dunhill Links.
The recent win has seen Hatton's Links record go 1/7/2/15/2/1/1, again tying him nicely with the likes of Danny Willett, winner of those two plus the DP World Tour Championship in 2018. List Rahm (twice second at the BMW PGA, once to Willett) and McIlroy (one win, twice second at Wentworth, multiple times a runner-up at the Links) as even more evidence, whilst if we need to get more recent records, last year's Wentworth champion Ryan Fox won the prestigious pro-am in 2022 before sparkling in second place just 12 months later.
So, in-form, cracking away with every facet of his game, long enough to score plenty of birdies on the scorable holes (ranked top three for birdies and par-5s in Abu), course form consisting of a pair of runner-up finishes, 6th, 8th, 11th and 16th in 10 tries, and the knowledge he can beat the best on the park, there is very little to prove.
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