Among the new features added to the 2023-24 season calendar on the DP World Tour, one of the most striking is the prize that the circuit awards to the players who manage to accumulate the most points in the different blocks into which the tournament schedule has been divided. This week, at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open at the Heritage La Réserve Golf Club in Heritage Bel Ombre, Mauritius, the first partial winner of the course will be announced.
The tournament of the African islands located in the Indian Ocean serves to put the finishing touch to the so-called Opening Swing, the first series of tour events that has included the first six tournaments of the course: the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship, the Joburg Open, the ISPS Handa Australian Open, the Investec South African Open Championship, the Alfred Dunhill Championship and this week’s event in which Australian Min Woo Lee ‘plays’ without leaving his house.
Lee leads the provisional classification of the Race to Dubai after the first five tournaments of the season. A victory in the Fortinet and a third place in the ISPS Handa, without leaving his country, allow him to lead the table with 688 points, 20 more than Rikuya Hoshino (668) and 61 more than Chilean Joaquín Niemann (627). Since neither of them play this Mauritius tournament, the chances of Min Woo Lee being overtaken in this Opening Swing are significantly reduced.
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Among those registered in the AfrAsia Bank only Darren Fichardt, Renato Paratore and Jayden Schaper have mathematical options to advance in the classification to Lee, who also does not participate in the Mauritius event, and to be crowned champions of this first block of tournaments, an achievement that in addition to reporting an extra $200,000 to the one who achieves it, gives access to the so-called Back Nine (the last nine events of the course before the Abu Dhabi and Dubai playoffs) and to the next of the Rolex Series that is disputed of the season; in case of being exempt, the turn would run to the second and so on.
The advantage for Min Woo Lee is that Darren, Renato and Jayden only need the victory to win this first swing of the season. None of the three contenders to dethrone the Australian has to be aware of what their rivals do because only the victory in Mauritius would give them the 500 points necessary to be at the top of the classification. An added difficulty for the three that Lee, without needing to travel to Africa, hopes to take advantage of to be crowned winner of the swing without playing this last tournament of the year on the tour.
Once this Opening Swing is closed, in January the so-called The International Swing will start, with seven events and the same prize ($200,000 to the winner and access to the Back Nine and the next Rolex Series that is disputed). On March 21, in Singapore, the The Asian Swing will start, with seven tournaments. On May 23, in Belgium, the The European Swing will start, with another seven events. While from the Genesis Scottish Open that starts on July 11 until the Danish Golf Championship at the end of August, the The Closing Swing will be played.
From the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo on August 29 until the event after the Andalucía Masters at the end of October in Sotogrande, still to be determined, the Back Nine will be played, which all the winners of each of the swings of the calendar will have access to. Afterwards, only the final playoffs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai will remain to crown the season champion on the DP World Tour. An interesting ‘candy’ the swings to add more excitement to each stretch of the course on the European tour.
