As the DP World Tour’s 2024 Race to Dubai draws to a close, excitement is building ahead of our return to the United Arab Emirates for the season-ending DP World Tour Play-Offs.
Once again, the UAE’s status as a major global golf destination will be reaffirmed when it plays host to the inaugural staging of our season-ending Play-Offs, and we are very excited to have united two of the region’s biggest sporting events in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links and the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai.
As golf’s global tour, the Play-Offs are the culmination of our 44-event season, which has visited 24 countries on five continents across three distinct phases – the five ‘Global Swings’, the ‘Back 9’, which ended with the Genesis Championship in the Republic of Korea, and now the ‘DP World Tour Play-Offs’.
It is a privilege to work alongside the many stakeholders and supporters of our events in the UAE, of which we will have had five by the end of the season. We visited the UAE earlier this year with the Dubai Invitational, Hero Dubai Desert Classic and Ras Al Khaimah Championship, and we are now looking forward to seeing our members compete in our season-ending events.
A fantastic example of the strength of our partnerships was seen last month with the launch of the Play-Offs at the DP World Pavilion in Dubai’s Expo City. His Excellency Aref Al Awani, General Secretary, Abu Dhabi Sports Council, Daniel Van Otterdijk, Group Chief Communications Officer, DP World, and Mohammed Al Marzooqi, Chief Executive Officer, HSBC, UAE, joined us for the launch at the DP World Pavilion.
We were also very pleased to welcome DP World Tour and Ryder Cup star Tommy Fleetwood to our launch event and, as a former Race to Dubai champion, two-time Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship winner and UAE resident, he was the perfect ambassador for the day.
Since he won his first Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship title in 2017, Tommy has represented Europe three times at the Ryder Cup, won the Silver Medal at the Paris Olympics and claimed five further victories on the DP World Tour, most recently at the inaugural Dubai Invitational, hosted by our European Tour group board member, Abdulla Al Naboodah.
The UAE has proved a happy hunting ground for some of the world’s most recognisable golfers, not least four-time Major Champion Rory McIlroy, who won his fourth Hero Dubai Desert Classic title earlier this season and is seeking a sixth Race to Dubai crown. If he is successful this month, he would not only join the legendary Seve Ballesteros on six season-long titles, he would also reiterate his status as one of our Tour’s greatest ever golfers.
As well as events in the UAE, this year we revisited the Kingdom of Bahrain for the first time since 2011 for the Bahrain Championship presented by Bapco Energies and returned to Qatar for the 27th edition of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters. The Challenge Tour, in partnership with the Emirates Golf Federation, also hosted back-to-back events in the UAE for the second year running, demonstrating that there is a vast amount of support for the work of the European Tour group and for professional golf in the Middle East as a whole and we look forward to further developing these relationships in the coming years.
