Player of the Year crown could be decided in Dubai, too

In weighing who to back for European Tour Player of the Year, the deciding factor could come this weekend at the DP World Tour Championship, writes John McAuley.

Henrik Stenson during the practice round at Jumeirah Golf Estates on Wednesday. Ross Kinnaird / Getty Images

DUBAI // While technically two, there are conceivably three prizes in the crosshairs at this week’s shootout in the European Tour’s last-chance saloon.

The DP World Tour Championship; the Race to Dubai; European Player of the Year.

Aim. Cock. Fire.

The latter, in theory, should provide the easiest target, yet it is a damn sight harder to decipher. Even Luke Donald is firing blanks.

“Do you go with the most wins? Do you go with the player who won the Race to Dubai?” queried the Englishman on the range at Jumeirah Golf Estates. “Good question.”

Good question, indeed. The annual vote, decided by a panel of media who stalk the tour each year, will settle next week, once the storm that is the season-ending event blows its path right through the Earth Course.

As of now, it is a three-way standoff. Henrik Stenson would appear locked and loaded, given that he currently sits top of the pile in the Race to Dubai standings. Those behind him, from second to ninth, can still hoist aloft the unwieldy trophy come Sunday, yet with victory here Stenson can ride off into the sun having rendered redundant the myriad permutations.

Until then, the debate rages. Stenson’s best results on the 2013 European Tour calendar – runner-up at the British Open, tied-second at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, third at US PGA Championship - have all come in co-sanctioned events, two of which struck oil Stateside.

Recently crowned FedEx Cup champion he may be, but the Swede has not registered a win on his ‘home’ circuit this campaign. The award, remember, goes to the European Tour’s player of the year.

Stenson’s direct rivals for the gong are those directly in his slipstream in Dubai: Justin Rose and Graeme McDowell. Granted, Rose’s season sprouted a first major championship - the US Open in June - but that no other titles have been extracted from Europe is a notable thorn in the flesh.

McDowell, however, had gathered two trinkets following victories at the Volvo Match Play and the French Open. Covering both sides of the Atlantic, he has topped the leaderboard three times in all, superior to both Stenson and Rose.

The feeling persists, though, that he could shoot the lights out this week and still not fetch the player-of-the-year bounty. That much, he concedes.

“Henrik might be a difficult guy to overshadow,” McDowell said. “He’s certainly my player of the year at the minute on the European Tour. Just an incredible run of golf since the British Open.”

Could he still kick dust in this thing’s eyes?

“A win this week would certainly throw me into the running as well,” he added. “Just one of the many boxes that would tick off if I was able to get it done here.”

So which constitutes the most equitable ballot? The guy with the most world ranking points gleaned from 2013 – Stenson (394, to Rose’s 315 and McDowell’s 215) – or the major champion, or the only man with tournament wins on European soil?

Deadeye Donald, never more evident than in his gallop to the 2011 vote, perhaps struck flush the bull’s-eye.

“The WGCs and the majors are the biggest events,” he said. “So if you do well in those, you’ve got credence.”

Credit to Stenson, then. Trawl the results of those eight tournaments and he just about squeezes it. Or maybe not, according to Ian Poulter, golf’s great gunslinger, who rarely wastes bullets. To him, the last man standing is a done deal. No need for the showdown at high noon, folks. The loot is King Henrik’s.

“The player of the season, if it ended already, is Stenson,” Poulter said. “This year, the amount of world ranking points he’s earned compared to anyone else is phenomenal.

“He has basically done what Rory [McIlroy] did last year [in topping the US and European Tour points lists]. You’d have to say he’s been by far the best player.”

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