One of the most important seasons in modern professional golf started in Dubai, and ended there, too.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy first teed up in 2025 at the Dubai Desert Classic in January. What happened between that T-4 and a playoff loss at the DP World Tour Championship on Sunday will go down in the record books. <\/p>\n
The Northern Irishman claimed PGA Tour victories at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Players Championship and the Masters. The last one made him the sixth winner of the career Grand Slam. In the fall, McIlroy turned his focus to the DP World Tour, where he triumphed at the Irish Open in September before playing a starring role (3-1-1) in Europe\u2019s away victory at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage.<\/p>\n
For one last time this season, McIlroy was in contention, this one in the DP World Tour season-finale. The 35-year-old was leading by two shots midway through the final day at Jumeirah Golf Estates, only to suffer two back-nine bogeys. That allowed Ryder Cup teammate Matt Fitzpatrick (66) to post the clubhouse lead at 18 under par. <\/p>\n
Still, McIlroy faced a 25-foot eagle putt on the 72nd hole at Jumeirah\u2019s Earth Course to force a playoff with a 67. As he had done at the Irish Open in September, he poured the eagle in the center. <\/p>\n
\u201cI got off to the perfect start; four under through seven and felt like I had taken control of the golf tournament and was a couple ahead,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI made two bogeys on the way in, on 12 and 16 and didn’t birdie 14 and 15, the birdie holes. Obviously knew I needed something to happen on the last. On the last, I knew what I had to do. I hit a great 5-wood. It was a great way to finish, making the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
In overtime, McIlroy drove it in the water hazard on 18 and made a sloppy bogey while Fitzpatrick also limped to the finish line. But the Englishman navigated a tricky up-and-down to save par for the win. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, hitting it in the water there on 18 put me behind the eight-ball,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019m happy for Matt. He’s had a great end of the season. He played great to get on the Ryder Cup team, and then he\u2019s kept it going since, so really happy for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. Open champion, earned his first worldwide victory since the 2023 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and his third DP World Tour Championship title.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it means the world,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cStruggled at the start of this year, obviously, and to turn it around in the summer like I did and have a Ryder Cup like I did, Ryder Cup in particular, feel like it’s hard to top given everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the way that I played today, you know, I feel like I really didn’t hit one bad shot all day. I’m so proud of myself, the effort that everyone puts in behind the scenes. Yeah, what a feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ludvig Aberg, Laurie Canter, Tommy Fleetwood and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen all shared third at 17 under.<\/p>\n
The playoff loss mattered little for McIlroy. He had already secured the Race to Dubai crown, the cherry on top of a year he had already dubbed the best of his career.<\/p>\n
It was his fourth successive Race to Dubai title and seventh overall. Surpassing Seve Ballesteros\u2019 six Order of Merit victories had the Ulsterman choked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a conversation with his wife, Carmen, before I went out to play today, and she told me how proud he would have been,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI said this on this green last year, he means so much to this tour and to the European Ryder Cup Team. We rally so much around his spirit and his quotes and everything he meant for European golf. To equal him last year was cool but to surpass him this year, yeah, I didn’t get this far in my dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a season for the ages. And such a season deserves an encore.<\/p>\n
McIlroy\u2019s last official tournament of the year will be the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne from Dec. 4\u20137. Although, that\u2019s technically in a new DP World Tour season; this one deserves some breathing room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most important seasons in modern professional golf started in Dubai, and ended there, too. Rory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[127,1472,1680,5448,399,17529,669,82],"class_list":["post-44556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dp-world-tour-championship","tag-dp-world-tour","tag-dp-world-tour-championship","tag-matthew-fitzpatrick","tag-race-to-dubai","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-rory-mcilroys-playoff-loss-doesnt-detract-from-a-remarkable-season-capped-off-by-his-seventh-race-to-dubai-crown","tag-seve-ballesteros","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}