Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed among nine who can win Race to Dubai

Heading into the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, there are nine players out of the 50 competing at Jumeirah Golf Estates who can still win the season-long race to Dubai, but only three of them truly control their fate. That's what we're going to talk about in this video. I'm Ryan Ballingy with Golf News Net here to look at the scenarios to win the race to Dubai and the $6 million prize pool at Jumeirah Golf Estates this week, where they're having also the $10 million DP World Tour Championship. The season-ending event features the top 50 players that are available in the point standings at the end of the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship. There are 2,000 Race to Dubai points that go to the winner, and that means there are nine players who are within 2,000 points of number one, Eugenio Chikara, in total, including himself, that could win the Race to Dubai at the end of the week. Obviously, the easiest scenario for Chikara to win the Race to Dubai is winning the DP World Tour Championship. In the event that he does that this week, he is the Race to Dubai champion, and he would also get the $3 million that goes to first place for winning the tournament this week. He technically can also still finish in last out of 50 players this week and still win the race to Dubai, so long as Rory McIlroy doesn't finish better than a two-way tie for fourth place, Patrick Reed doesn't finish better than a two-way tie for third place, and no one who's ranked fourth through ninth in the standings winds up winning the tournament. Obviously, that's not the scenario he's looking for, but it is plausible mathematically for Chikara to wind up winning the season-long race without finishing anywhere near the top of the leaderboard. Rory McIlroy can win the Race to Dubai if he wins the DP World Tour Championship, a tournament he has loved and won multiple times. He can finish solo second and still win the Race to Dubai if Chikara and Reed both finish worse than third place or in third place by themselves. He can finish as low as fourth place and still wind up winning the Race to Dubai, provided that Eugenio Chikara finishes in a two-way tie for 46th place or worse. And Patrick Reed finishes in a three-way tie for second or worse. And again, no player who's in fourth through ninth in the standings winds up winning. Patrick Reed is the last guy who can kind of control his fate a little bit here. If he wins the tournament, the DP World Tour Championship, and Eugenio Chikara finishes in worse than a two-way tie for second. Then he can win the race to Dubai. He can also finish in a two-way tie for second place if McIlroy finishes third or worse, and Chikara finishes in a three-way tie for 17th or worse. And again, no player ranked fourth through ninth in the current standings winds up winning the tournament. Those players who are ranked 4th through 9th are Casey Jarvis, Aaron Rai, Jon Rahm, who got there by winning the Algarve Championship last week, Jayden Schaefer, who had a great beginning of the year, Ryan Fox, the Open Champion, and Daniel Hillier. Those all can win the race to Dubai. They must win the tournament. Then they have to have Chikara, McIlroy, and Reed finish somewhere worse along the way. Increasingly worse finishes are needed for someone like Daniel Hillier to win, for example, he would have to win the tournament. Chikara would have to finish 31st or worse, McIlroy would have to be 4th or worse, and Reed 3rd or worse. So lots of scenarios where someone else other than Chikara, McIlroy or Reed, can wind up winning this thing, but Eugenio Chikara is in the driver's seat to win the season-long points race on the DP World Tour.