Hatton's Statement Win In Dubai
Englishman targets Ryder Cup, majors after big Dubai win. Plus, Straka prevails in the California desert, Hastings takes the LAAC, Webb calls for Bradley to step down if he qualifies for Ryder Cup.
Tyrrell Hatton captured his eighth DP World Tour title at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic following a workmanlike duel with Daniel Hillier.
“I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous on the back nine,” he said of his careful play coming home. “I guess I just maybe wanted it a bit too much. I knew the position I was in, and a little bit scruffy down the last. But yeah, to see that putt go in felt amazing.”
With the duo making only one birdie over the final six holes, it turned out that Hatton’s wedge approach and birdie at the 16th made the difference over the 26-year-old New Zealander who co-medaled at the 2018 U.S. Amateur.
For Hatton, the win proved especially vital in securing world ranking points for the volatile LIV defector.
“This event and the four Majors this year are massive for me to try and earn as many points as I can to try and be an automatic qualifier (for the Ryder Cup),” Hatton said. “This is a big step in the right direction. So happy with that, and looking forward to the rest of the year.”
Thanks to an appeal of fines inflicted upon him for playing LIV events against DP World Tour starts, Hatton remains eligible to play the European circuit. And he’s put the time too good use.
Since Ryder Cup qualifying began, Hatton has gone T18-T10-1-2-6-5-1 to move atop the standings.
Hatton’s next start will be LIV’s February opener at the rousing, some say, ethereal Riyadh Golf and Megayacht Club.
“To add my name to the list of the amazing champions that have been before me, and yeah, to have my name on that trophy now, yeah, it's a dream come true,” Hatton said of the Rolex Series event triumph.
The win was not without some of Hatton’s trademark abuse of nearby innocents.
During Saturday’s third round, he broke a tee marker with an iron and received a post-round visit from rules officials.
“Just a bit of frustration,” the Englishman said according to The Guardian, where he was called out by Ewan Murray for ongoing course abuse antics that included spitting on greens at Augusta. “Probably shouldn’t have done it. Does it make me a bad person? No. It’s just a spur-of-the-moment thing and it happened. I can’t go back and change it, so move on.”
Former LIV golfer Laurie Canter finished third.
In his first start of the year, Rory McIlroy closed with a 66 to finish three back and in a tie for fourth.
“When you take a few weeks off,” McIlroy said, “and you come back to play like a really good tournament setup like this, I look at some flags on greens and like, whoa, that's quite a bit further to the right than I thought it would be or that's quite a bit further to the left. I think playing a week like this, it sort of gives me a good appreciation for what I need to do the next few weeks.”
Straka Cruises To AmEx Win
The old Hope’s least compelling day this year landed against NFL games Sunday where a pancake-flat final round saw Sepp Straka never threatened at PGA West. Despite playing out in perfect desert weather and the final group shooting a combined six-under-par, the threesome of Sepp Straka, Jason Day, and Charley Hoffman took five hours and 40 minutes to complete the round. It took three hours, fifty minutes to play the first 12 holes. And without the amateurs who accompanied these turtles the first three days.
Worth noting: a zephyr was briefly reported somewhere in the greater Coachella Valley. Unconfirmed reports suggest a flock of bighorn sheep ate too many refried beans at dinner and may have caused the brief “gust.”
Anyway, due to a final hole bogey in the near-darkness, Straka dropped to 25-under-par, his third PGA Tour win ended up two strokes clear of Justin Thomas and by three over Day.
Oh, and Straka made 27 birdies for the week sporting a freshly shaved head. Look, we’ll take what we can get here on the anecdote front.
The Austrian/ish will jump to 19th in the Official World Golf Ranking. His ranking status had already earned the 31-year-old a 2025 Masters invite. He will be making his fourth appearance this April.
A member of the winning 2023 Ryder Cup team in Rome (1-2-0), Straka will also make a huge move up the qualifying standings after starting the week ranked 60th.
Among the contenders, Thomas (-23) closed in 6-under 66 for his eighth career runner-up, while Day earned his first top-three finish since his runner-up at the 2023 Open.
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Taylor Moore (T7/-19) finished the tournament bogey-free to become the first player since Joaquin Niemann in the 2021 Rocket Mortgage Classic to play 72 holes without a bogey (or worse) and not win.
Since the last AmEx, PGA West’s Stadium Course went through a full course restoration designed to reclaim lost design details caused by typical wear-and-tear. The effort to regain lost green space, key hole locations, and fall-offs around the greens looked fantastic. Ignore the scoring. The course regained some of its edge despite the massive gains made by players doing planks and turning to Mediterranean diets.
William Mouw posted a second-round 81 that included an octuple bogey 13 at San Andreas Fault, a.k.a. the 16th hole and Where Tip O’Neil Quit The Game.
It would be rude to detail the disaster since, (A) Mouw went to Pepperdine where we Waves stick together, and (B) you can watch the YouTube posting of all the shots. Only if you enjoy such calamities. I would never suggest this will make you feel better about your short game deficiencies. Or laying up backwards to end the misery.
Collin Morikawa withdrew from this week’s Farmers stop at Torrey Pines, further depleting the tournament’s weakest field in almost 30 years.
San Diego native Xander Schauffele did not enter the Farmers after withdrawing from the American Express.
2024 Farmers runner-up Nicolai Hojgaard also withdrew from the event.
Could these WD’s be related to a report by CBSSports.com’s Rick Gehman that Torrey Pines will step in as the Genesis host? (Understandably, one week of golf over Rees Jones’ bungled South Course redo is enough for most.)
This week’s event will be the final playing of the former Andy Williams Isuzu San Diego Open under Farmers’ name. Given the treatment of insurance claims by the Los Angeles-based corporation, I say good riddance.
According to Newsweek, the insurer has a 14.9 percent market share in the state and “closed a total of 257,189 claims across the country with no payment that same year—equal to 49.7 of all claims closed in 2023.” The L.A. Times had a similar California-related finding. Having watched way too many golf tournament interviews, I suspect the Farmers denial rate is unlikely to prevent the company from patting itself on the back this week for giving back to the region.
Reminder: the tournament starts Wednesday and finishes on Saturday to avoid Sunday’s AFC and NFC championship games. Jim Nantz will call the CBS portion of Friday and Saturday action from Kansas City, host to the AFC title game.
Hastings Takes LAAC, Lands Three Major Invites
Justin Hastings of the Cayman Islands captured the 2025 Latin America Amateur Championship after inclement weather forced a 36-hole Saturday round.
The 21-year-old San Diego State senior becomes the second Caymans golfer to win the event after Aaron Jarvis. The island features just 27 holes of golf.
Hastings finished at 16-under to edge Peru’s Patrick Sparks by a stroke. Sparks is a recent graduate of North Carolina Wilmington where his now serving as an assistant coach.
“I don't think it's totally kicked in,” said Hastings after shooting 64-72 in the marathon finale. “I learned that I still have things to work on in those moments but at the same time, I'm proud to see how far my mental game has come in the last few years.”
Hastings receives invitations to the 2025 Masters, The Open at Royal Portrush and the U.S. Open at Oakmont. Provided he retains his amateur status, Hastings will be the first golfer from the Cayman Islands to play in the U.S. Open.
Pilar Golf Club in Buenos Aires, Argentina hosted the event and saw Segundo Oliva Pinto, one of 11 home country players, finish T-3.
Vice Captain: Bradley Should Play If He Qualifies
It’s not Mutiny on the Bounty. Yet.