Rory McIlroy misplaced the week-long $10 million DP World Tour Championship on Sunday in a playoff in opposition to Matt Fitzpatrick, however did sufficient to make sure he was topped the winner of the season-long Race to Dubai champion.
“It’s completely unbelievable. I knew I nonetheless had a bit of labor to do to recover from the road within the Race to Dubai,” stated McIlroy, who will stay the world No2.
McIlroy topped the European tour’s season ending rankings for a seventh time, and for the fourth season in a row. He broke a tie with Severiano Ballesteros and is one behind Colin Montgomerie, who achieved the feat eight occasions.
“It appears inside touching distance now,” stated McIlroy. “I used to be the primary European to win the Grand Slam and I’d like to be probably the most profitable European by way of successful Order of Deserves and season-long races.”
He added that Ballesteros “was all the time my dad’s favorite participant”.
“Once I hear Seve, it simply kind of brings me again by my complete journey within the recreation, and yeah, it’s fairly emotional.”
Englishman Fitzpatrick made a birdie on the 72nd gap of regulation play to complete with a 66 on the Earth course of Jumeirah Golf Estates. A couple of minutes later, Northern Eire’s McIlroy sensationally eagled the identical gap after an excellent second shot to 16 ft.
On the primary playoff gap, McIlroy’s drive discovered the stream that crosses the green, and will solely make a bogey, leaving Fitzpatrick a third-time winner of the season-ending event.
Fitzpatrick, the 2022 US Open champion, saved his nerve for his third DP World Tour Championship title and a tenth DP World Tour victory in 195 begins.
‘This implies the world’
Till he completed tied eighth within the PGA Championship in Could, he didn’t have a top-10 for almost 11 months.
“This implies the world,” stated Fitzpatrick, who picked up two-and-half factors as Europe gained the Ryder Cup in September.
“Struggled at first of this 12 months, clearly, and to show it round in the summertime like I did and have a Ryder Cup like I did, it feels prefer it’s arduous to prime given every little thing.”
“I really feel like I actually didn’t hit one dangerous shot all day,” he stated.
4 gamers – England’s Tommy Fleetwood (67) and Laurie Canter (67), Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg (66) and Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (68) – tied for third at 17-under par complete.
McIlroy, the Masters champion, gave the impression to be motoring alongside when he made 5 birdies in his first 11 holes to maneuver forward by two photographs.
A bogey on the twelfth gap, the place he overshot the inexperienced together with his method shot, and one other dropped shot on the par-four sixteenth, the place he discovered a bunker, pulled him again.
After McIlroy’s lengthy birdie putt lipped out on the seventeenth, he was one behind a bunch of 4 gamers.
That grew to become a two-shot deficit when Fitzpatrick made the sixth birdie of his bogey-free spherical on the 18th.
McIlroy responded with a towering second shot from 234 yards into headwind to 16 ft for his eagle to drive the playoff.
England’s Marco Penge completed in a tie for twenty second to safe second place within the Race to Dubai.
He led 10 non-exempt gamers who will get their PGA Tour card for 2026. That record contains Canter, Kristoffer Reitan, Adrien Saddier, Alex Noren, John Parry, Haotong Li, Keita Nakajima, Neergaard-Petersen and Jordan Smith.
Revealed on Nov 17, 2025