The stages are set on the European Tour for the Race to Dubai finale and on the LPGA Tour's Race to the CME Globe finale this week in Naples Florida. More on those in a minute..
PGA Tour
First for the second week in a row there is a Monday finish. Last week at the WGC- HSBC in Shanghai Russell Knox won his first European Tour event got on a plane and flew to Mexico where after more rain then finally darkness stopped the final round of the OHL Classic he finds himself tied for the lead again, this time with Graeme McDowell at -19, McDowell is thru 13, Knox thru 12 as the field is scheduled to tee off at 8am this morning
The wind is blowing in Mayakoba and there are plenty of black clouds about so it may be a long day.
Race to CME Globe http://www.lpga.com/tournaments/lorena-ochoa-invitational-presented-by-banamex/results
Going into this weekend's play at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico, Lydia Ko with her five wins as well as 11 other top-10 finishes, has climbed to the No.1 ranking in the world and earned 4,913 points in the season long Race to the CME Globe. In doing so, she locked up the No.1 position ahead of this week's finale in Naples, the CME Group Tour Championship.
However the plot thickened as to who will win the Race and indeed who is the world #1 after Inbee Park fired an -8 64 on Sunday at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, to hold off playing partner Carlota Ciganda to win her fifth title of the year which includes 2 majors to Lydia's 1.
These two women, Lydia now 18 and Park 27 are so close in all categories, and even closer after Park’s -18 270 has pushed her ahead of Lydia in the Vare Trophy standings by just 0.0161 shots per round. Park’s victory also puts the Rolex Player of the Year trophy firmly up for grabs next week as she has pulled within just three points of Ko. Park will need a minimum of an eighth-place finish to tie Ko in the player of the year standings if Ko doesn’t manage a top-10.
Race to Dubai
Rory McIlroy has kind of been the forgotten man this year after he tore up his ankle in the summer, but remember this is a year long race, not a short sprint and McIlroy has held the top spot since April 12, after he finished fourth at the Masters Tournament, and then pulled clear of the chasing pack with victory in the WGC-Cadillac Match Play a month later.
In his absence Willett who is having a career year closed the gap with a top six finish in The Open Championship at St Andrews and his second victory of 2015 in the Omega European Masters a week later then got even closer with a share of third place in Italy before an impressive closing 62 in last week’s WGC-HSBC Champions. He is now just over 1600 points behind Rory, but to me, seems to have run out of gas, while Rory who always plays well in the desert is fresh following his very restricted schedule.
So this week it is the finale at Greg Norman's Earth Course in Dubai, with several players besides Rory and Danny vying for the title. Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace are all set to start play knowing that a victory could secure the Race to Dubai crown, and don't overlook the brilliant young South Korean, Byeong Hun An who also has an outside chance following his T3 finish in Shanghai
Bryan Angus
(notes from europeantour.com, lpgatour.com)
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