This Week in Golf: Dubai residents Porteous and Grenville-Wood looking for strong finishes on the Challenge Tour

Our focus this week is on the Challenge Tour – and the $500,000 Hangzou Open in China – the penultimate event of the season, before the season ending Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A in Mallorca at the end of the month.

Dubai residents, Garrick Porteous (Eng) and Joshua Grenville-Wood (UAE) are in 52nd and 64th respectively in the Road to Mallorca Rankings and both need good weeks – if not exceptional weeks to get in the top 45 to play in Spain.

Porteous, 34 years-old is a winner this year – taking top prize and €45,148.70 as well as 320 Ranking points in the Abu Dhabi Challenge at Al Ain Equestrian, Shooting and Golf Club back in April.

The top 20 players in the CT Rankings after Spain will earn their 2025 DP World Tour Cards – all part of the pyramid eco-system of professional golf around the world.

The DP World Tour is at Sotogrande. Defending champion and Dubai resident Adrian Meronk (Pol) is not in the field but is committed to play in the DP World Tour Play-offs at both the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links and DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates on the Earth course next month.

The field in Spain includes: Jon Rahm (Spain), the Hojgaard twins (Den), Victor Perez (Fr), David Puig (Spain) and Eugenio Chacarra (Spain) as well as last week’s FedEx Open de France champion, Dan Bradbury (Eng) and a host of DP World Tour stars.

The importance of the Rolex Series events on the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai is well illustrated by the fact that Meronk last played in a DP World Tour event at the HERO Dubai Desert Classic and is still 34th in the Rankings – without significantly performing that well in all four Majors. These big events attract the best players and are really Ranking movers, as well as Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) movers - anchoring the DP World Tour Rankings.

This week’s event in Spain is the penultimate event on DP World Tour’s ‘Back 9’ before next week’s Genesis Championship in Korea and then to the DP World Tour Play-Offs.

An exciting climax to the season is ahead of us – with it happening here in the UAE.

Schedule

PGA Tour

Thursday 17th October – 20th October, 2024

Shriners Children’s Open

Venue: TPC Summerlin, Las Vegas, Nevada, US

Purse: $7 million

DP World Tour

Thursday 17th October – 20th October, 2024

Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters

Purse: $2.2 million