2020 DP World Tour Championship: Top 10 power rankings at the Earth course

Three top-10s in six starts at the DP World Tour Championship leads me to believe a win could be coming soon for Tyrrell Hatton at the Earth course.

The 29-year-old Englishman debuted well here in 2014 when he finished T-6th (70-68-68-70) in 2014. Hatton followed with T-13th (69-72-69-69) a year later, was solo runner up (71-66-67-68) by just one shot in 2016 and was T-8th (72-63-69-68) in 2017.

His play has slipped at this tournament the past two years, but his overall game has gotten much better in the meantime. Hatton won on the European Tour in 2019 at the Turkish Airlines Open. He did twice better in 2020, winning the PGA Tour’s prestigious Arnold Palmer Invitational and the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship.

After the win at Wentworth this fall, Hatton hopped over to the U.S. and nearly won a week later at the CJ Cup where he earned T-3rd. Add in a T-7th at the Houston Open and T-23rd in his last outing at the RSM Classic and it’s clear the fiery Englishman is trending in the right direction.

Length is plenty useful at Jumeirah, but it’s still more of a second shot course in my opinion. That plays into Hatton’s hands. He ranked fourth on the PGA Tour last season in strokes gained approach (.695). Dive deeper and you see he was first in proximity from 175-200 yards (25’3”), a common yardage for this week, including on three of the par-3s.

Hatton is strong throughout the bag. Like most elite ball strikers, a decent putting week is likely to put him over the top.

“The greens are always perfect around here,” Hatton was transcribed by ASAP Sports in 2016. “That’s something I think all the players look forward to. You know, it’s a good test of golf.”