Rolex Pro Am kick starts DP World Tour Championship today
The Rolex Pro-Am for the DP World Tour Championship gets underway today (Tuesday) signalling the start of what promises to be an electrifying week of world-class golf at Jumeirah Golf Estates. Rory McIlroy, who has just secured his second Race to Dubai crown, will tee off on the Earth course’s first hole as part of the DP World team in the morning shotgun which kicks off at 7.00am. McIlroy has enjoyed a dream season, winning two Majors – The Open Championship and the US PGA Championship – as well as the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and the prestigious BMW Championship at Wentworth.
Jumeirah Golf Estates Ambassador Henrik Stenson, who last year did the ‘Dubai Double’ of the DP World Tour Championship and The Race to Dubai titles will follow McIlroy off the first tee with his Jumeirah Golf Estates team in what promises to be a thrilling day of golf and fun for both spectators and the amateurs lucky enough to be teeing it up with the galaxy of European Tour stars in the field competing in a relaxed yet competitive atmosphere.
Martin Kaymer, winner of this year’s US Open, is also in the morning shotgun, teeing off the 10th in the Rolex team, while Challenge Tour graduate Brooks Koepka, who capped a sensational season in style by winning his first European Tour title at last weekend’s Turkish Airlines Open, will tee off from the fifth with the Emirates team and Justin Rose, top scorer for the European Ryder Cup team at Gleneagles in September will join another DP World team teeing off the 11th.
All 12 of Paul McGinley’s Ryder Cup heroes are in the DP World Tour Championship field this week. It’s the first time they’ve all been reunited since their emphatic 16 ½ – 11 ½ victory over the USA and sure to draw a crowd will be Jamie Donaldson who secured the winning point for Europe with his inch perfect wedge shot on the 15th to seal the Cup with a 4 & 3 victory over Keegan Bradley.
Donaldson will tee off with his DP World team on the first hole in the afternoon shotgun at 12.30pm, immediately after Ryder Cup teammate Victor Dubuisson who finished third in last year’s DP World Tour Championship and has enjoyed a wonderfully consistent season with seven top tens as well as a sterling unbeaten debut in The Matches with 2 ½ points from three outings.
Lee Westwood, another of the triumphant Ryder Cup team and the winner of the inaugural DP World Tour Championship and The Race to Dubai titles at the Earth course in 2009, is also in the afternoon shotgun teeing off with his Emirates team from the second while fellow Englishman Ian Poulter, who has found his usual purple patch of form in the season’s crucial Final Series, will join the BMW team teeing off from the 18th.
Poulter was the only member of Europe’s Ryder Cup team not yet guaranteed a spot in this week’s DP World Tour Championship prior to the commencement of the four big-money season ending events which culminate here this week but a tied sixth place finish in the WGC-HSBC Champions followed by runner up in the Turkish Airlines Open saw him rocket from 63rd to 13th in The Race to Dubai.
With 46 teams of four, comprising one professional and three amateurs, it’s sure to be a captivating and entertaining day at the Earth course in the 2014 Rolex Pro-Am for the DP World Tour Championship.
