DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Rory McIlroy’s banner year in golf finished with fitting drama Sunday, when he eagled the last hole in regulation to force a playoff but lost out to Matt Fitzpatrick, who won the season-ending DP World Tour Championship for a third time.
The consolation for McIlroy? A fourth straight Race to Dubai title — crowning him as the year’s No. 1 player on the Europe-based DP World Tour — to add to his wins this year at the Masters (to complete the career Grand Slam), The Players Championship, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and his home Irish Open.
The 36-year-old from Northern Ireland, who is No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking behind American star Scottie Scheffler, also helped Europe win the Ryder Cup on American soil in September.
All of his big individual victories came via playoffs, but a final one proved just beyond McIlroy after he hit his drive into a creek on the first playoff hole — No. 18 on the Earth Course — and made a bogey. Fitzpatrick chipped to three feet and rolled in a par putt to win the tournament title for a third time at Jumeirah Golf Estates, with this victory joining those from 2016 and 2020.
“You never like to see the way it ends, but obviously delighted,” the 31-year-old Englishman said after sealing his first win in two years but the 10th of his DP World Tour career.
McIlroy generated the biggest roar of the day when he poured in a 15-footer for an eagle on No. 18 to complete a round of 5-under-par 67 and join Fitzpatrick (66) at 18-under 270 through 72 holes. He also eagled the last hole at the Irish Open in September to force a playoff before going on to beat Sweden’s Joakim Lagergren.
“In typical Rory fashion, he did it again,” said Fitzpatrick, who watched it unfold while sitting in the scorer’s hut.
He met McIlroy outside, where he shok his hand and gave his Ryder Cup teammate a hug. They did so again after the playoff — which finished with both of them as winners.
For McIlroy, it’s a seventh Race to Dubai title, putting him one clear of the late Seve Ballesteros of Spain and one behind Colin Montgomerie’s record haul.
“I didn’t get this far in my dreams, so it’s very cool,” said McIlroy, who revealed that he spoke to Ballesteros’ widow, Carmen, before his round Sunday.
“It seems within touching distance now,” he added about catching Scotland’s Montgomerie. “I’d love to be the winningest European in terms of Order of Merits and season-long races. You know, I’ve probably got a few more good years left in me, and hopefully I can catch him and surpass him.”
Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open champion, started this season slowly but finished it strong, making the Ryder Cup team on the strength of top-10 finishes at the British Masters in August and the European Masters and BMW PGA Championship in September. He then won 2 1/2 points during his four matches at New York’s Bethpage Black to help Europe beat the United States.
“To turn it around in the summer like I did and have a Ryder Cup like I did, feel like it’s hard to top, given everything,” Fitzpatrick said. “But the way that I played today, I feel like I really didn’t hit one bad shot all day. I’m so proud of myself, the effort that everyone puts in behind the scenes. Yeah, what a feeling.”
Nine players held at least a share of the lead in the final round across a wild few hours that culminated in Fitzpatrick making three birdies in his final five holes to overtake McIlroy and overhaul a slew of Europe’s other stars, including England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg.
A birdie putt from six feet at No. 18 took Fitzpatrick a stroke clear of Fleetwood (67), Aberg (66) and Laurie Canter (67) and two ahead of McIlroy, who was waiting in the 18th fairway knowing he needed to make an eagle.
He hit a fairway wood from around 230 yards to the right of the pin, got a good read from playing partner Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who was a few feet further away, and drained the putt.
Neergaard-Petersen (68) made a birdie to join the group 17 under in a tie for third.
And while Marco Penge was unable in the final week to chase down McIlroy in the Race to Dubai standings, he was still smiling after his round of 67.
It completed a breakthrough year in which the 27-year-old Englishman earned one of the PGA Tour cards on offer for the top 10 players in the standings who are not otherwise exempt.
The other nine players wound up being Canter, Kristoffer Reitan, Adrien Saddier, Alex Noren, John Parry, Li Haotong, Keita Nakajima, Jordan Smith and Neergaard-Petersen. They will be dual members of the two established tours.
Playing alongside McIlroy in the final group, Neergaard-Petersen needed to play the last five holes in 5 under to be one of the 10. He went eagle-birdie-par-birdie-birdie to do so.
While the 2025 season is over, the DP World Tour won’t wait for the calendar to flip to 2026 before beginning the next schedule. It begins Nov. 27 at the Australian PGA Championship, followed by four tournaments in December before a holiday break that ends with the Dubai Invitational in mid-January.
Schenk earns weighty win in the wind
SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda — Adam Schenk finally won on the PGA Tour when he least expected it, closing with a par round of 71 in raging wind to hold on for a one-shot victory in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in his 243rd start on the circuit.
Schenk was two tournaments away from having to return to Q-school at No. 134 in the FedEx Cup standings. And then he handled some of the toughest conditions he ever faced, making one birdie and four crucial par saves Sunday in gusts that topped 30 mph.
The last one was as difficult as any. His approach to the par-4 18th at Port Royal went just over the green as Schenk clung to a one-shot lead. He chose his putter to roll through about six feet of fringe because of the tight lie, and the wind pushed it to about five feet short of the hole.
He gave that winning stroke a light touch, relieved when it found the center of the cup to hold off Chandler Phillips, who also closed with a 71.
“I’ve putted for PGA Tour wins so many times in my barn,” said Schenk, a 33-year-old Indiana native. “To see one go in is something I’ll never forget.”
Schenk finished the 72-hole tournament at 12-under 272. Phillips was alone in second.
Twice a runner-up in 2023, the year he reached the Tour Championship for the first time, Schenk with the victory gets a two-year exemption at a time on the PGA Tour when having full status is critical. Only the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings — down from 125 — get full status for smaller fields in 2026.
Japan’s Takumi Kanaya had a chance to catch Schenk, one shot behind and playing with him in the final group. The wind was so strong out of the left that his approach ballooned and landed in a back bunker. He hit a superb shot to four feet, but his wind-affected par putt lipped out.
Kanaya, at No. 120 in the FedEx Cup standings, would have moved to No. 83 with a par on the final hole. The miss moved him up only to No. 99 and facing plenty more stress next week in the final event, the RSM Classic that tees off Thursday on Georgia’s St. Simons Island.
Phillips was at No. 139, and his runner-up finish — the best of the 28 year-old Texan’s PGA Tour career — moved him to No. 92 and should make him safe for a card.
Schenk hit a low point when he missed six straight cuts this summer. He made some tweaks to his game, and decided to putt one-handed to help with his biggest weakness, and thought he was making decent progress without great results.
Now he has a PGA Tour victory, getting him into at least one $20 million signature event next year, along with the PGA Championship and The Players Championship.
This didn’t come easily, especially in wind so strong that tournament officials moved up the tee times to avoid the worst of it.
Schenk holed those nervy putts from six to eight feet on the 12th and 14th holes. He hit onto the side of a hill on the par-3 16th, the scariest par 3 at Port Royal, right up against the ocean with the wind ripping off it. He slightly lost his balance on the chip, then beautifully played to three feet for another save.
And then he missed the putt he thought he hit perfectly, the wind moving his six-foot birdie attempt on the 17th enough for it to spin out of the cup. That would have given him some breathing room.
Instead, Schenk had to grind for one last par.
“I knew I could win. It’s just a matter of executing each shot and handling each situation I put myself in,” Schenk said. “I can’t believe it’s over. It seems like the longest day ever.”
Grant makes winning ‘look easy’
BELLEAIR, Fla. — Linn Grant had so much control of her game that she played 52 consecutive holes without a bogey, a streak that ended on the last one — and when it no longer mattered.
The 26-year-old from Sweden closed with a 5-under 65 to for a three shot-victory over American player Jennifer Kupcho in The Annika.
It was Grant’s second LPGA title, and the second time she received a trophy from Swedish great and tournament host Annika Sorenstam. Grant also won the Scandinavian Mixed in Sweden in June 2024 when Sorenstam and 2016 British Open champion Henrik Stenson were co-hosts.
“You made this course look easy. It’s not easy,” Sorenstam told her on the 18th green at Pelican Golf Club.
It must have felt that way to Grant, who was never under much stress. She finished 72 holes at 19-under 261 and had a chance to set the tournament record until a bogey on the final hole, her first one since her first hole of the second round Friday, when she started on No. 10.
“There are weeks where everyone feels like their game is really good and there could potentially be a win. It’s just really nice to like see it go all the way and to really walk off 18 and be able to pat yourself on the shoulder and feel like I actually did it this week,” Grant said.
She is the first Swedish winner of the tournament that began in 2020, even more meaningful to Grant because she remembers going to clinics Sorenstam held in Sweden when she was a girl and recalls watching Sorenstam hit wedges to someone catching them with a baseball glove.
“I started doing that with my dad, so thanks for that,” Grant told Sorenstam.
Kupcho birdied the first hole to tie for the lead, but only briefly. Grant birdied the next hole and never trailed again. The Swede had to make a 15-foot birdie putt to stay one ahead through five holes, and then she seized control on the par-3 ninth.
Kupcho made her second bogey of the front nine, and Grant rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt to extend the lead to three shots. No one got any closer the rest of the way.
Kupcho also closed with a 65.
“I’m glad she was playing well, because I think that really pushed me to play better,” Grant said. “And overall, I just had the thought of whoever wins is going to have a really good job.”
Mexico’s Gaby Lopez birdied four of her last six holes for a 65 to finish third at 15 under.
Brooke Matthews also came away a winner in two respects. She made a hole-in-one with a 9-iron from 140 yards on the 12th hole to win a two-year lease on a Lamborghini Huracán. Two holes later, Matthews chipped in for an eagle and all those great shots mattered.
It was part of her closing 65 — a round that included scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 — to tie for ninth, giving her enough points to move into the top 60 of the Race to the CME Globe standings. That qualifies her for the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship that starts Thursday in Naples, where the winner gets $4 million.
“It was wild,” Matthews said. “All week I was like, ‘I want to win the Lamborghini.’ … Just saw it bounce. I still can’t believe it. I blacked out. I can’t wait to watch it on film, because I still can’t really remember it.”
Nataliya Guseva had her own big moment. Guseva holed out with a gap wedge from 109 yards on the final hole for a birdie — she had to lay up out of a fairway bunker — giving her a 68 that moved her into the top 60.
Lucy Li also advanced. Her birdie on the final hole gave her a 66 and moved her up 13 spots to No. 58.
Grant was running out of time to extend her streak of winning each year somewhere in the world dating to 2020, when she was still an amateur and won twice in the Nordic Golf League. She has won tournaments on the LPGA, Ladies European Tour, LET Access Series, Ladies Sunshine Tour, Nordic Golf League and even the DP World Tour, which co-sanctioned the Scandinavian Mixed.
“My dad is a man of good words,” she said. “When he looked at someone else’s career, he always said, ‘If you have a win every year that’s pretty solid.’ I guess that’s what it is.”
Cink wins to finish as top senior
PHOENIX — Stewart Cink won the PGA Tour Champions’ season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club to take the Charles Schwab Cup season points title.
Cink closed with a 4-under 67 to finish 72 holes at 20-under 264, two strokes ahead of Steven Alker, the third-round leader who also ended up second in the season standings. Alker bogeyed the par-5 18th in a 70.
The 52-year-old Cink won for the third time this season and fourth in 36 career starts on the 50-and-older tour. He won eight times on the PGA Tour, highlighted by a playoff victory over Tom Watson in the 2009 British Open.
Freddie Jacobson (66), Jerry Kelly (67) and Tommy Gainey (68) tied for third at 15 under.
Groundbreaking success
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Sandra Changkija became the first woman to win the Assistant PGA Professional Championship in the 49-year history of the tournament, closing with a par round of 72 to win by three shots at the Dye Course at PGA Golf Club.
Changkija is a former LPGA Tour player who now is an assistant pro at Lake Nona in Orlando. She was one of two women in the 132-player field.
Under the PGA of America guidelines, women play about 85% of the yardage as the man. Changkija played the Dye Course at 6,035 yards, compared with 7,122 yards for the mean.
“It means a lot,” Changkija said. “I’ve worked really hard on my game. And being that I work a full-time job, it’s hard. The field is mostly men, these national events, so it means a lot that a female can win.”
Suzy Whaley, a Connecticut professional who went on to become PGA of America president, was the first woman in 2002 to win the Professional National Championship. That earned her a spot in the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour in 2003, two months after Annika Sorenstam received an exemption at the Colonial.