The DP World Tour has already approved the contingency plan necessary in case the armed conflict taking place in Iran prevents the staging of the season’s final two tournaments: the Abu Dhabi Championship and the DP World Tour Championship.
According to what Ten Golf has learned, if security is not guaranteed, the Abu Dhabi championship will be cancelled and the Dubai Final will be moved to the Real Club de Golf de Sotogrande, in the province of Cádiz. The other major change is that the top 70 players in the rankings would play. The aim of expanding that final event from 50 to 70 is to compensate for the elimination of the first playoff.
The contingency plan is already approved and will be announced in the coming hours by the European circuit. The idea is to go ahead with the tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, but the Tour was obliged to have a plan B ready in case play cannot take place at the intended venues. That Plan B is called Sotogrande.
So much so that on 13 October the setup for the tournament will already begin on the fabulous Cádiz course. It will be somewhat scaled down, with no marquee on hole 18, much more modest, the club will not even be closed to members in the week beforehand, only the weekend before, if necessary, and there will be no specific preparation. The European Circuit knows that the conditions at Sotogrande are always in ‘tournament mode’, so they could make a last-minute decision.
There is no deadline to decide whether to play in Dubai or Sotogrande. Everything will depend solely on security conditions. If everything remains as it is now, the most likely scenario is that it will be played in the Emirates, but if tensions escalate, the circuit has an alternative. In other words, to put it simply: the DP World Tour is organising two possible finals in parallel. The setup in Abu Dhabi has already begun, the Dubai Final has too and on 13 October it will start in Sotogrande.
Putting ourselves in an extreme scenario. Imagine the Abu Dhabi tournament is played and that that Sunday night or on Monday there is, hopefully not, a bombing in Dubai that would not guarantee safety. In that case, the whole DP World Tour circus would immediately move to Sotogrande.
The news is there will be a final of the DP World Tour no matter what and it will be in Dubai or in Sotogrande. In fact, it is planned that in the days before the final a second television production team from the circuit will be sent to prepare the feed as if the tournament were to be held in Spain.
The news, confirmed to Ten Golf, reflects the excellent relations between the European circuit and Sotogrande. The DP World Tour needed a reliable alternative venue just in case and Sotogrande has said “we’re here for whatever you need”. As we say, the setup would be much more modest than the final, so any inconvenience to Sotogrande members would be smaller. That said, the prize fund would be the same and player participation perhaps even better, since there are some—like Matthew Fitzpatrick—who have already said they are not happy about having to play in the Emirates.
It would even have a poetic touch if it were again in Spain and in Sotogrande where McIlroy would have the chance to equal Colin Montgomerie, whose eight Orders of Merit were won at Sotogrande, at the conclusion of the Volvo Masters. If confirmed, it would be the return of the European circuit final to Andalusian soil 18 years later. The last Volvo Masters was in 2008.
Obviously, there would also be fewer spectators, since, unless the escalation of violence takes place in the Emirates already in the coming days, ticket sales for Sotogrande would take place at the last minute. There would not be much time. We’ll see. For now, Sotogrande is only a contingency plan, although nobody can rule out that it might become a reality. The date of the Final would be the same: 12 to 15 November.