Ahead of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, Paul McGinley gives his reflections on the 2024 season, some of the remarkable storylines to emerge and the challenge ahead for Rory McIlroy.
It’s been a very good year for the DP World Tour in very challenging times. We have really thrived and done well, particularly since the FedExCup finished in September. I think we've had some great storylines since then, some great events to get the top players coming back and populate a lot of those fields. We had Jon Rahm playing well in Spain, Rory McIlroy playing well in the events he played in, Tommy Fleetwood too, as well as the European players who have been playing all year on the DP World Tour and competing well against the world's best players.
I think the new-look schedule panned out well. The Genesis Scottish Open was another huge success, a great performance again by Robert MacIntyre and we've been fortunate in so far as the big names at each event, whether they be a home player or maybe the favourite, have done well. Angel Hidalgo did brilliantly at the Spanish Open, going head-to-head against Rahm and taking him down. It's been overall a pretty good season, with really good storylines across various events.
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The ten PGA TOUR cards are brilliant for members, and this is a members’ organisation. The job of the executives is to serve the members and they're doing that with record prize funds and a pathway onto the PGA TOUR. So as a player on the DP World Tour, you've never had it any better than it is right now. The opportunities for these guys to have good seasons and go and throw their hand at the PGA TOUR is great. It's a great pathway. We've always had that pathway, but now it's formalised and if they do get the card on the PGA TOUR, it is a very good category, getting them into a lot of events. Of the nine players, because Adrian Meronk didn’t take his up, that went forward, six kept their card to retain their playing status for another year. So that's impressive. It shows you the standard of the DP World Tour. As I say, the job of the executive and the board is to serve the players, and the players are being served really well at the moment with some great events, record prize funds and a pathway onto the PGA TOUR.
Of those currently projected to be in next year’s crop of dual members, their games are good enough. They've all finished in the top 20 in the money list this year and it may even be top 15 that is needed after this week in order to secure your PGA TOUR card. So, it's a high standard. They'll have played very well on the DP World Tour to get that status. It just shows you that the pathways are there. You can go from without a card to getting a Challenge Tour card to getting a DP World Tour card to get a PGA Tour card in very quick succession. Professional golf is a meritocracy and that illustrates it.
What Matteo Manassero has done this year is a great human story. Everybody in the game who knows him is thrilled for the success that he's had this year and he's going from playing on the Challenge Tour to having a good card on the PGA TOUR in a matter of 18 months. That’s a huge step. What we've seen from the guys who have gone over to America is it's not so much the golf, we know they’re capable. The question is the culture change, and can they equip themselves to that culture change and the different environment that the PGA TOUR is. It's a tour that really rewards big hitting, which Matteo is not known for. He's a steady eddie type player, so he is going to have to pick his battles over there and play well on golf courses that will suit him because a lot of golf courses won't suit him, and other players will have a big advantage. But again, it's an opportunity for them and that's all players can ask for.
I think Rory has had a very good season. His stats have all been pretty good this year. I think he's a more rounded golfer than he's ever been before. But the problem he's got is that the bar has raised. The bar is a lot higher than it was when he was winning Major Championships ten years ago. Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler are playing golf to a standard and level that we haven't seen since Tiger Woods. Consistently, their statistics show that. Certainly, Scottie Scheffler this year has gone down as one of the best recorded statistical seasons, winning seven times. Schauffele is not far behind him and is a better putter than him, but his statistics through the bag are phenomenal. The bar has never been higher for Rory to compete in. The environment has never been tougher. So, I think he's had a good season, but he knows himself that he's going to have to do something extraordinary to take down those two players, who have moved the needle quite a bit.
