– The Qatar Masters, which concluded on Sunday with a victory for Patrick Reed and a fifth place for Ángel Ayora, was the ninth tournament of the DP World Tour season. It all started back in November in Australia, and before we know it, we are about to complete the first ten. The number nine is significant. The European calendar has 36 regular tournaments, not counting the Majors, the Abu Dhabi playoff, and the Final in Dubai. This means that the first quarter of the season has just been completed. Firstly, it’s not insignificant, as things are starting to take shape. Secondly, it’s a great moment to take stock.
– Of everything that has happened, the two consecutive victories of Jayden Schaper, the prodigious emergence of Patrick Reed, along with the news that he was leaving LIV to play the entire year on the DP World Tour, the two Spanish triumphs with David Puig and Nacho Elvira as protagonists, there is above all one detail that is really quite unusual. In fact, it could be described as an absolute rarity, something like the exception that proves the rule.
– It turns out that in these first nine tournaments of the 25/26 campaign, there has been no English or British victory. The former has happened a few more times, but the latter is really rare. So much so that in 55 years of DP World Tour history, it has only happened on three occasions. This year is the third. Let’s review the winners: Puig, Neergaard Petersen, Reitan, Schaper, Schaper, Elvira, Reed, Schott, and Reed. No trace of the British world, that is, English, Welsh, Scottish, or Northern Irish.
– We have reviewed each year of the DP World Tour history, since the circuit was launched in 1972 (by the way, we are very close to having played the same number of years in the 20th century as in the 21st) and it turns out that only twice have the British been left without a win in the first nine tournaments of the season. To clarify here, we are referring to the first nine tournaments of each of the seasons, not the first quarter of competition, as that first quarter would indeed change according to the number of tournaments in the season, a figure that has been modified from the creation of the circuit to the present day.
– The only two years that no Briton won in the first nine tournaments of the season were 2001 and 1997. Is this year an extraordinary exception or not? This 2026 contrasts, for example, with what happened in 1973 or 1993, when out of the first nine tournaments, seven were won by Britons. These are the positive records. Last year at this time, for example, we had already had three English victories.
– Obviously, the English are the ones who have won the most. Only on eight occasions have they been left without a win in the first nine of the year, as has happened this time. The previous most recent zero was in 2022.
– As for Spain, the two victories are more than satisfying. We have to go back to 2014 to find the last time we achieved two or more victories in this first stretch. Then, two years ago, there were already three victories, and the year ended with five. Do you dare to predict how many victories there will be in 2026? Do you think five is a good number, or should we be more ambitious?
– Spain has gone without a win in the first nine tournaments of the DP World Tour on 18 occasions. Not bad. It means that 37 times we won at least one of the first nine tournaments. The positive record occurred in the 1977 season. Incredible. That year the Armada conquered six of the first nine tournaments of the European circuit. A festival.
