Double delight in Dubai for Rahm
DP World Tour Championship report: What happened at Jumeirah Golf Estates?
The European Tour’s season concluded in typically dramatic fashion as Jon Rahm won his fourth Rolex Series event and sealed the season-long Race to Dubai title.
The Dubai Double! 🏆🏆@JonRahmpga wins the #DPWTC and #RacetoDubai! pic.twitter.com/A9Flg8PWWy
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 24, 2019
Rahm finished on -19 having come into the final round at -15 and sharing the lead with Mike Lorenzo-Vera.
The Spaniard got off to a brilliant start and quickly opened up a healthy lead. He holed 124 feet of putts in his opening seven holes and was cruising with a six-shot lead over Lorenzo-Vera heading to the 8th before things started to unravel slightly.
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A poor tee shot at 8 was the catalyst of back-to-back bogeys and from there things became a lot more interesting. He was unable to make any further progress until the final hole as bogeys at 13 and 15 cancelled out birdies at 10 and 14.
Lorenzo-Vera seemed to find the form of the first three days on the back nine and pulled within one but it was Fleetwood who almost did enough to force a third consecutive play-off on the European Tour.
"We've got a golf tournament on our hands here!"@MikeMlv moves within two.#DPWTC #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/bbKsiMYY10
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 24, 2019
Fleetwood rallied late on to tie the lead on the 18th with Rahm left with just one hole to play. The Englishman tied the best round of the day with a 65 and it was five birdies in his final seven holes that saw him really come into the picture.
What a performance @TommyFleetwood1!
He birdies 18 & sets the clubhouse target at 18 under par.#DPWTC #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/39yTjzK0FY
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 24, 2019
With Fleetwood in the clubhouse at -18 Rahm knew he needed to birdie the par-5 18th to win and unfazed by the situation he striped his tee shot down the centre of the fairway.
A second shot leaked right into the greenside bunker left a long but straightforward bunker shot which was complicated only by the high-pressure scenario. He executed the shot perfectly and left just a short putt for victory which he rolled into the centre of the cup.
He takes home his second DP World Tour Championship trophy as well as his first Race to Dubai title.
Joe Hughes
Tour editor covering men's golf, women's golf and anything else that involves the word golf, really. The talk is far better than the game, but the work has begun to change that.
