The DP World Tour Thread

paulos53

Fair play to Richard Bland. He has just won his first European tour event after 478 attempts at the age of 48

Mysterypunter

paulos53 wrote: »

Fair play to Richard Bland. He has just won his first European tour event after 478 attempts at the age of 48

Great to see him win, but I was watching it yesterday and I thought Robert McIntyre had won this, the Uspga and next year's masters, according to the sky commentators. There is some nest of crows in that box

RikkFlair

paulos53 wrote: »

Fair play to Richard Bland. He has just won his first European tour event after 478 attempts at the age of 48

Amazing story really, almost ready for the Seniors tour, must have thought he would always be one of those Journeymen who never won. Surely oldest first-time winner in the tours history?

fullstop

That was fantastic. Was fearful for him going into that playoff after the emotion of the finish. Just great to see.

abff

fullstop wrote: »

That was fantastic. Was fearful for him going into that playoff after the emotion of the finish. Just great to see.

Yes, a real good news story. How could anyone not be moved by that? Absolutely delighted for him.

boardise

Paul Dunne uses the self-destruct button late on again to deadly effect.

jams100

Just looking at the race to dubai rankings there, shambolic.

Somehow Billy Horschell is leading it.

An absolute farce, the guy hasn't played one regular European tour event.

They really need to look at how they are awarding R2D points, I get that the WGCs and Majors are going to have extra weighting but it's completely out of sync and it's done purely to appeal to the "top" players, who let's face it, play f*** all events on the European tour anyway. Someone like Garrick Higgo should be on top, he's won twice and had multiple top 10s.

The European tour shoot themselves in the foot by pandering to the big players like this.

Dr. Bre

jams100 wrote: »

Just looking at the race to dubai rankings there, shambolic.

Somehow Billy Horschell is leading it.

An absolute farce, the guy hasn't played one regular European tour event.

They really need to look at how they are awarding R2D points, I get that the WGCs and Majors are going to have extra weighting but it's completely out of sync and it's done purely to appeal to the "top" players, who let's face it, play f*** all events on the European tour anyway. Someone like Garrick Higgo should be on top, he's won twice and had multiple top 10s.

The European tour shoot themselves in the foot by pandering to the big players like this.

That is mad that Billy leads this !

Mysterypunter

Dr. Bre wrote: »

That is mad that Billy leads this !

Last season, Collin Morikawa could have won the European order of merit, without ever playing a tournament in Europe, it would have happened had he won the final tournament in Dubai

eagle eye

jams100 wrote:

The European tour shoot themselves in the foot by pandering to the big players like this.

Fully agree with this. Only the majors should count towards it.

Roger_007

jams100 wrote: »

Just looking at the race to dubai rankings there, shambolic.

Somehow Billy Horschell is leading it.

An absolute farce, the guy hasn't played one regular European tour event.

They really need to look at how they are awarding R2D points, I get that the WGCs and Majors are going to have extra weighting but it's completely out of sync and it's done purely to appeal to the "top" players, who let's face it, play f*** all events on the European tour anyway. Someone like Garrick Higgo should be on top, he's won twice and had multiple top 10s.

The European tour shoot themselves in the foot by pandering to the big players like this.

Dubai isn’t in Europe either. Money is the key here. The big money events European Tour depend are funded to a disproportionate extent on Middle East money and the sheiks want bang for their buck in having big name players in their prestige events. The big name players are not going to be attracted to the regular European events so they have to come up with some way to have some big names in the season-ending showcase.
The European Tour is becoming relatively poorer all the time compared to the PGA Tour, so this farce is going to get worse in future.

RikkFlair

Could see the PGA tour swallowing up the Euro tour in the near future, and it will just have a "European swing" section of maybe half a dozen events, which is all the top Euro players would be playing in Europe anyway as things stand. Greg Normans prophecy of a "World Tour" looking more and more likely.

Mushy

RikkFlair wrote: »

Could see the PGA tour swallowing up the Euro tour in the near future, and it will just have a "European swing" section of maybe half a dozen events, which is all the top Euro players would be playing in Europe anyway as things stand. Greg Normans prophecy of a "World Tour" looking more and more likely.

Isnt there some link up between the tours?

Mysterypunter

RikkFlair wrote: »

Could see the PGA tour swallowing up the Euro tour in the near future, and it will just have a "European swing" section of maybe half a dozen events, which is all the top Euro players would be playing in Europe anyway as things stand. Greg Normans prophecy of a "World Tour" looking more and more likely.

Greg Norman and his prophecy as if he's some kind of seer, that man is a XXXXXXXXXXXX, who is taking Saudi money to be a mouthpiece for them, because they are running out of oil, and are only investing in golf as part of a ridiculous tourism campaign, the Saudi tourist board, I'd prefer to visit Afghanistan

jams100

Roger_007 wrote: »

Dubai isn’t in Europe either. Money is the key here. The big money events European Tour depend are funded to a disproportionate extent on Middle East money and the sheiks want bang for their buck in having big name players in their prestige events. The big name players are not going to be attracted to the regular European events so they have to come up with some way to have some big names in the season-ending showcase.
The European Tour is becoming relatively poorer all the time compared to the PGA Tour, so this farce is going to get worse in future.

I get all that, my point is that they are rewarding the likes Rahm, McIlroy and Co by awarding the likes of the British masters and tenerife open a paltry 3,000 R2D points per event between them whilst awarding 9,000 to a those WGC events that aren't even played in the Continent of Europe once every two or three years.

My point is there is no reward for playing on the European tour, Higgo can go and win another event and still not be top of the R2D, so why would he bother keep playing on the euro tour?
Answer he won't and its a revolving circle until players are rewarded for playing in Europe.

What the European tour should do is make all events a minimum of 4,000 R2D points, the Irish open, Italian open etc. 6k and the rolex series, majors and WGCs 8,000. That would be fairer, I just dont think it's right to keep rewarding the likes of Rahm and co with a bonus at the end of the year when they play one or two regular events in the whole year.

I also think the R2D is quite boring, there's no volatility because the likes of the tenerife open has so few points available, anyway they are my thoughts

Good to see James Sugrue making his first professional cut over the weekend on the European Challenge tour at the Dormy Open in Sweden.

Mantis Toboggan

What went wrong for Robin Dawson? Next big star a few years back but never got going in the pro game and I see he's dead last in Sweden with rounds of 81 and 79!

Mysterypunter

Sky have still not been treated for their Robert McIntyre fetish, a few minutes ago, they announced, the coverage was supposed to finish at 5:00, but it's been extended because we have to see Bob finish. Why exactly?

Trampas

Mysterypunter wrote: »

Sky have still not been treated for their Robert McIntyre fetish, a few minutes ago, they announced, the coverage was supposed to finish at 5:00, but it's been extended because we have to see Bob finish. Why exactly?

He’s the marquee player this week. You can always press red button to watch the featured groups if you don’t want to watch him

Mysterypunter

Trampas wrote: »

He’s the marquee player this week. You can always press red button to watch the featured groups if you don’t want to watch him

The achievements don't match the hype

Deeper Blue

Mysterypunter wrote: »

Sky have still not been treated for their Robert McIntyre fetish, a few minutes ago, they announced, the coverage was supposed to finish at 5:00, but it's been extended because we have to see Bob finish. Why exactly?

Pretty much sums up the state of the tour at the moment to be honest

Dr. Bre

4 of the top 5 in the race to Dubai rarely play on the European tour

eagle eye

Mysterypunter wrote:

The achievements don't match the hype

As far as I'm aware he is the highest ranked player in the world in the field this week, he's also the highest ranked player in the Race to Dubai rankings.
In his last ten European tour events he has a win and four more top tens.

abff

eagle eye wrote: »

As far as I'm aware he is the highest ranked player in the world in the field this week, he's also the highest ranked player in the Race to Dubai rankings.
In his last ten European tour events he has a win and four more top tens.

That excludes majors and WGC events. He’s ranked 46th in the world, which is hardly earth shattering.

And the overall strength of the field is very poor, even by recent European Tour standards.

tobsey

Even in regular coverage there are main groups they always follow. They probably showed all his group from the start. They don't end the coverage leaving viewers wondering how a group they've watched all day plays 17 and 18.

eagle eye

abff wrote:

That excludes majors and WGC events. He’s ranked 46th in the world, which is hardly earth shattering.

And the overall strength of the field is very poor, even by recent European Tour standards.

The point I'm making is he's the big Ayer in the field so is obviously going to get the coverage.

abff

eagle eye wrote: »

The point I'm making is he's the big Ayer in the field so is obviously going to get the coverage.

That’s a fair enough point. But he’s hardly a big enough draw to warrant extending the TV coverage.

eagle eye

abff wrote:

That’s a fair enough point. But he’s hardly a big enough draw to warrant extending the TV coverage.

He must be or it wouldn't happen.

Mysterypunter

eagle eye wrote: »

As far as I'm aware he is the highest ranked player in the world in the field this week, he's also the highest ranked player in the Race to Dubai rankings.
In his last ten European tour events he has a win and four more top tens.

In his career he has one win, a gimmick tournament in Cyprus. He has never won a 72 hole strokeplay tournament. The one he won in Cyprus had the scores reset on Saturday and Sunday

eagle eye

Mysterypunter wrote:

In his career he has one win, a gimmick tournament in Cyprus. He has never won a 72 hole strokeplay tournament. The one he won in Cyprus had the scores reset on Saturday and Sunday

You don't get into the top 50 in the world by winning a small.tournsment in Cyprus. His body of work put him in the top 50 at a young age.
He's going to be top ten in the world at some stage soon. He could be a great one, it's very understandable that Sky are concentrating on him.