This Thursday marks the start of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, a DP World Tour tournament reserved for the top 70 in the Race to Dubai and a precursor to the grand Final. It takes place at the Yas Links course, in Yas Marina, and we will have six Spaniards in the competition: Ángel Hidalgo, Jorge Campillo, Nacho Elvira, Adrián Otaegui, Alejandro del Rey, and Alfredo García Heredia. Of these, the first four have secured their qualification for the Dubai Final, which will be played next week in Jumeirah, while Del Rey and García Heredia will need to perform well to break into the top 50. They need to climb the rankings, which means finishing high in this week’s tournament.
The calculations for the Madrid and Asturian players are quite simple regarding the 50th position held by Andy Sullivan. Del Rey is just over 170 points away from the target (adding to the Englishman the minimum he could earn by finishing in the last position of the tournament). As things stand, at the very least, to have a remote mathematical chance, he should finish tenth alone, while for his qualification to be very likely, regardless of what others do, his goal should be eighth alone.
Meanwhile, García Heredia is almost 220 points behind Sullivan, which means that mathematically he would need to finish at least eighth alone, and to have many chances, he should finish in sixth place. Obviously, it will then depend on what the rest of the players do, especially those close to that 50th position.
On the other hand, the other four Spaniards have nothing to fear. The lowest-ranked is Adrián Otaegui, who is in 35th place in the Race to Dubai, making it materially impossible for him to be surpassed by 16 players.
The golfers to watch closely, those between 45th and 55th place, are as follows: Min Woo Lee, David Ravetto, Aaron Cockerill, Paul Waring, Connor Syme, Andy Sullivan, Keita Nakajima, Bernd Wiesberger, Calum Hill, Grant Forrest, and Jeff Winther. Let’s remember that Pavon, Lombard, and Rai, who are in 55th, 56th, and 57th positions, are not in this tournament, so they have also opted out of playing the Dubai Final. Of the three, Lombard is due to a serious injury.
In any case, in Abu Dhabi, a giant leap can be made in the Race to Dubai. It should not be forgotten that the tournament winner will earn no less than 1,500 points, which means that Ángel Hidalgo, for example, could move up to third in the Race to Dubai, or García Heredia, who is the lowest-ranked Spaniard, to fifth place. Obviously, any of our players who win in Abu Dhabi would secure a PGA Tour card for the next year.
