Despite not playing, Rory McIlroy near lock for $1.25 million Euro Tour bonus
This is how good Rory McIlroy’s year has been: With a pair of majors and a World Golf Championships title under his belt, he can sit out the European Tour’s equivalent of the FedEx Cup and still win the whole darn thing.
McIlroy has skipped the first two legs of the European Tour’s Finals Series, a four-event docket concluding with the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. At the end of that tournament, the player with the most points earns a $1.25 million bonus.
Despite the world No. 1 choosing to sit out again this week, it is practically impossible for any player to catch him for the seven-figure prize. Only three players, Jamie Donaldson, Sergio Garcia and Marcel Siem have a mathematical chance of surpassing McIlroy. Any of them would need to win this week’s Turkish Airlines Open and the Dubai finale and need a sub-standard finish from McIlroy to take the Race to Dubai.
Even though a permutation exists for Garcia to win, he thinks the title rightfully belongs to McIlroy.
“I think Rory did something quite extraordinary this season and this summer more than anything, and maybe he deserves to be The Race to Dubai Champion, even before we play the Dubai World Championship next week,” Garcia said Wednesday. “There’s no doubt that it’s nice to be a part of it, to have still a little chance of winning it.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
