The European Tour is changing the finale for their Race to Dubai, and it means a whole lot more money will be going to the winners of the last three events of their season.
The final three events of the season, formerly known as the Finals Series and now all part of the tour's Rolex Series, will now offer dramatically higher first-place payouts to winners. The Turkish Airlines Open, Nedbank Golf Challenge and DP World Tour Championship in Dubai will continue to offer the same purses as last season, but the winner will receive much larger checks.
The Turkish Airlines Open purse will remain at $7 million, but the winner will now receive $2,000,000, compared to the $1.16 million Justin Rose earned by winning the 2018 event. The champion of the Nedbank Golf Challenge will now receive $2.5 million from the same $7.5 million purse, compared to the $1.25 million Lee Westwood captured in 2018. Finally, the champion of the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai will earn $3 million, up from the $1.33 million winner's check for Danny Willett last year.
The remaining prize money for each of the three no-cut events will then be paid out as though the rest of the field were playing for a $5 million purse. The second-place finisher in each of the events will win $833,330, or what would be the winner's check in a $5 million European Tour event. The field sizes for each event have been cut as well, with the leading 70 players in the Race to Dubai standings eligible for the Turkish Airlines Open, cutting down to the top 60 for the Nedbank Golf Challenge and the top 50 for the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
Now operating under a points system instead of money as points, these three events will see an increase in total Race to Dubai points: 9,000 at the Turkish Airlines Open (up from 7,000); 10,000 at the Nedbank Golf Challenge (up from 7,500); and 12,000 at the DP World Tour Championship (up from 8,000).
There will also be a consolidation in the prize money for the Race to Dubai bonus pool, distributed after the DP World Tour Championship concludes. The bonus money will now be paid to the top five players, not the top 10. The winner will receive $2 million, which is an increase from the $1.25 million earned by Francesco Molinari in 2018.
These moves are no doubt a reaction to the PGA Tour's decision to revise its schedule to run from September to August. With more PGA Tour events played in the fall, the European Tour sees a potential opening to attract top-name global stars to their three season-ending events with the lure of huge first-place paydays and the possibility of quickly amassing enough Race to Dubai points to potentially parlay a good three-week run into millions of dollars.
