David Puig could still finish his particular mini-season in style on the DP World Tour. The golfer from La Garriga has created an opportunity to play in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the DP World Tour Championship, which are essentially the playoffs of the European Tour, akin to the semi-finals and the final. It’s not an easy task, but at least he has managed to open a window.
Puig’s route is called the non-member ranking of the DP World Tour and relates to a new regulation approved this season. In Abu Dhabi, 15 spots are reserved for the best-ranked available players on this non-member list, provided they have at least the same number of points as the last member player who qualifies through the Race to Dubai. The same applies to the Dubai Final, although the reserved spots are reduced to 10.
For Abu Dhabi, the top 70 available players from the Race to Dubai qualify, while for Dubai, it’s the top 50 also available. What does available mean? It means that if there are qualified players who decide not to play in any of these tournaments, the spots move downwards. In other words, the last DP World Tour member to play in Abu Dhabi could be the one ranked 70th or further back. Therefore, it’s not possible to make an exact calculation of what Puig would need to qualify. The minimum reference point is the 70th position, but he might need even fewer points if the cut drops one, two, three, four, five, or six places.
Currently, Puig has 458.58 points, placing him in the 99th position in the Race To Dubai. He is 208.6 points away from the 70th position held by Adrien Saddier (667.18). The calculations for now have to be approximate, as we don’t know how far the position will move in Abu Dhabi, nor do we know what the various players will score in the next three tournaments: Open de France, Estrella Damm Andalucía Masters, and Genesis Championship. Puig is at a disadvantage because he will only play one of those three tournaments, in Sotogrande, so he will have no choice but to perform very well.
Mathematically, at a minimum, he would need to be fourth alone in the Andalucía tournament, which would earn him 250 points, although it’s likely that this amount won’t be enough for the reasons explained above: there are three tournaments left for all the players involved in that area and many opportunities to score points. Therefore, we could say that he will need at least a third place alone (312 points), although we couldn’t guarantee it either. The exact calculations can only be made before the Korea tournament.
What we can say with certainty is that a victory in Sotogrande or a second place alone would open wide the doors to both tournaments, Abu Dhabi and the Dubai final, since the winner earns 835 points and the second alone receives 555. An additional incentive for Puig in the Estrella Damm Andalucía Masters.
In the non-member ranking, David currently occupies the twentieth position, but he will surely have no problem being one of the 15 or 10 available, as most of those ahead of him do not plan to play these two tournaments. The top 19 are Schauffele, DeChambeau, Scheffler, Morikawa, Burmester, Oosthuizen, Henley, Cameron Young, Cantlay, Robin Williams, Colsaerts, Homa, Conners, Theegala, Sunjae Im, Matsuyama, Bezuidenhout, Dunlap, and Cameron Smith.
Of all of them, barring a surprise with an American, the one who could play is Oosthuizen, who does have the necessary points to enter both tournaments (whether he decides to play is another matter), as well as Robin Williams and Colsaerts, although they would still need to score points to secure their qualification. In fact, both, who are affiliated members, have entered the Open de France this week by top 10, so they can grab another chunk of points. The one who definitely cannot play in Abu Dhabi or Dubai is Burmester, as he is suspended by the tour.
In the best-case scenario, Puig could play in the remainder of the season in Sotogrande, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the International Series in Qatar, and in Saudi Arabia, the last tournament of the year on the Asian Tour. Of these last two, if he qualifies for Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it would be normal for him to skip Qatar, although that decision will have to be made later.
