Francesco Molinari he can become the first Italian to win the Race to Dubai, the 2018 European golf tour which closes this week with the DP World Tour Championship, the eighth event of the Rolex Series, underway in Dubai from today to Sunday. Chicco leads the continental money list at the end of an extraordinary season, in which he led the Ryder Cup team to victory and won three tournaments, including the Open Championship, the oldest major in the world. He lacks only this last act to seal a perfect year and become the king of Europe in golf. The context is the Jumeirah Golf Estates, there are eight million dollars up for grabs and the players on the course are only the top 60 in the standings.
Chicco has a huge advantage over rivals and from the height of his 4.709.921 points he has only one real opponent: his best friend Tommy Fleetwood, the winner of this ranking in 2017. The Englishman has 3.684.755 points and to stay on the throne he must win the tournament and hope that his friend/enemy you slip past fifth place. It will be hard and beautiful to see Molinari against Fleetwood, after having cheered for them in Paris where, as a couple, they established the new record of four victories and knocked out Tiger Woods and his companions.
For Tommy the work to do in Dubai is a lot, while Molinari can take the game relatively calmly, given the many big names on the pitch who can aspire to the podium by knocking out the Englishman. Among others, it is worth mentioning the Americans Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele, the Spaniards Jon Rahm, who scored in the last edition, and Sergio Garcia, the Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, the Swede Alex Noren, the Dane Thorbjorn Olesen, the British Tyrrell Hatton , Matt Wallace and Lee Westwood, who returned to success in South Africa on Sunday after four years of fasting, the Chinese Haotong Li and the Thai Kiradech Aphibarnra. Andrea Pavan, who has played at a high level throughout the year, is also expected in an important test, taking his first victory on the circuit, the D+D Real Czech Masters. In the Race to Dubai he is currently 34th.
