How Rory McIlroy Could Lose the Race to Dubai

Even though he’s ahead, it’s certainly not impossible for Rory McIlroy to lose the Race to Dubai. Victories by any one of six players could bump him from the top spot as week two of the Race to Dubai steams forward.

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Unfortunately, like the FedEx Cup Finals, the Race to Dubai Finals are all about the math. But from the looks of it, a person with a calculator or a spread sheet can make some sense of who’s advancing and who’s declining. It’s predicting the future that’s tough.

Going in to the Turkish Airlines Open, McIlroy was in first place with 3,012,000 points. He was just 271,214 points ahead of Danny Willett, 452,793 ahead of Louis Oosthuizen, 483,776 ahead of Justin Rose, 556,251 ahead of Shane Lowry, 853,502 ahead of Branden Grace and 1,168,840 ahead of Bernd Wiesberger.  At that juncture, any one of those six challengers could have passed McIlroy with a victory. Four of them could have passed him by finishing second. (However, Rose and Oosthuizen didn’t play.)

Because McIlroy finished 6th at the Turkish Airlines Open, the chasers didn’t lose that much ground to him. McIlroy earned only 256,695 in points for his effort.

Now, McIlroy has increased his lead slightly on the nearest competitors, Willet, Oosthuizen, Rose and Lowry. However, he left the door ajar for them because he did not finish higher.

Several players farther down the list, Victor Dubuisson, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, An Byeong Un, and Soren Kjeldsen, improved their positions to the point that they are now real contenders. They would need more than a victory to overtake McIlroy, but it could be done with a win and a second or third or fourth or some combination of those point totals.

A victory is worth 1,333,330 points. Second is 880,000; third is 500,000. Those are the big payoff numbers. It drops precipitously from there: 400,000 for 4^th, 339,200 for 5^th, and 256,695 for 6^th.

Looking toward the HSBC Champions, McIlroy is now 399,385 points ahead of Willet, 617,476 ahead of Lowry, 709,448 ahead of Oosthuizen, 740,471 ahead of Rose, 1,110,197 ahead of Grace, and 1,393,415 ahead of Bernd Wiesberger. Dubuisson’s victory advanced his cause. He is now 1,875,280 behind McIlroy.

With a victory at HSBC, Willett, Lowry, Oosthuizen, Grace or Lowry would move into the top spot, depending on McIlroy’s finish. Willett could pass McIlroy by finishing second, third or fourth. Lowry could get the top slot with a win or a second, as could Oosthuizen, depending on McIlroy’s finish. Grace would need a victory to get the lead in the Race to Dubai, and McIlroy would have to play average golf. Rose is skipping this event also.

The difference between this week and last is that, putting it mildly, the competition is going to be stiffer at the HSBC Champions because it is also a PGA Tour sanctioned WGC event. Those eligible are Top 50 in the World Golf Rankings, Top 30 in Race to Dubai as of October 26^th and Top 30 in last season’s FedEx points. The field will include Jordan Speith and Zach Johnson, both major champs this year, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson. Nearly every top player except Justin Rose and Jason Day will be there. That turns up the heat on the level of play. McIlroy, like the rest, will have to raise his game a notch to stay on top of the pack, and he knows it.

“It’s always good to test yourself under pressure and in contention,” he said at the conclusion of play Sunday. “My game didn’t hold up as well as I wanted it to today. But next week’s another opportunity to get myself into the mix again and see if I can handle it a bit better.”

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While there are a scary number of combinations and permutations in figuring out who could topple McIlroy, the main fact is, he’s not so far ahead that he can play casual golf. He has to play like he wants to win every week he’s entered. If he doesn’t, one of the five to ten challengers behind him still has enough time to take the top prize away.

McIlroy has a great deal of experience facing down challengers at the highest level. In addition he has a new driver and new ball that he likes. He knows the courses and wants to win the Race to Dubai to salvage 2015. But even with the lead, it’s not a mortal lock.

The Math: When it comes to doing the math, the Race to Dubai is on the order of the FedEx Cup but with more zeros. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Making it worse, the Euro Tour did not actually release a list of points for this year for each place in advance of the Turkish Airlines Open. However the points are listed at the conclusion of the tournament on the European Tour site, next to the money column. The only other issue is they did not bother to mention if ties changed the amount of points earned.

Next: WGC-HSBC Champions Power Rankings

Here are the top five points distribution for your mathematical convenience: