Video: Euro Tour's Finest Play From The 22nd Floor
/Another entertaining European Tour promo video, this time for the Atlantis in Dubai and the season ending points race. Nice surprise cameo too.
**You may recall there was some tremendous First World complaining about the European Tour mandating players start two of three "Race To Dubai" events. Ernie Els even WD'd from this week in supposed protest.
Steve Elling explains part of the ire, justified in this instance I'd say:
Bigger cracks emerged at the second event in the series, the lucrative HSBC Champions in Shanghai. The co-sanctioned, 78-man event event is not run by the European Tour, which has little sway over the composition of the field. As a result, 10 of the top 40 on the Race to Dubai points list did not find a place on the tee sheet, including Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts, Thorbjorn Olesen, Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Shane Lowry.
In theory, a points race represents a season-long meritocracy. But if all three of Dubai’s lead-in events have fields of 78 players or fewer, it crimps the opportunity for top players in the points list to participate. In reality, designating co-sanctioned events as Finals Series stops meant even fewer spots were available to European Tour regulars.
It felt like a closed shop.
At the co-sanctioned BMW Masters, 14 players from the China Golf Association were included in the field. At the HSBC, because of the tournament format, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald played, while players having better 2013 seasons were benched. In points, both players were outside the crucial top 60, the number required to land a spot in the Dubai finale.
Six of the 78 players at HSBC were from China, including two ranked outside the top 800 in the world. One of them failed to break 80 in three of his four rounds and finished a whopping 59 shots off the lead. Ouch.
