The Ras Al Khaimah Championship might not have the same star-studded alure of last week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, nor the $9,000,000 prize fund, but it provides another opportunity for Tom McKibbin and Padraig Harrington to improve on their respective maiden tournament outings and for Conor Purcell to go in search of a first paycheck in his maiden season as a full DP World Tour member.
After a strong showing in the Team Cup and a sixth-placed finish in Dubai, McKibbin comes into the week as one of the pre-tournament favourites and widely fancied to land a second DP World Tour title before his expected move to LIV is confirmed.
The 22-year-old Holywood man missed the cut on his course debut here in 2022, but returned a year later and finished 36th. His steady progression continued, both at the venue and as a player, and improved his placing to finish tied for 16th last year, posting three rounds in the 60s with a 70 on Saturday the clear outlier.
This year, he has improved on his performance at the Emirates Club in Dubai and will look at Ras Al Khaimah as a free roll of the dice, as an opportunity to improve on his world ranking, and as a chance to prove exactly why he’s become a target for LIV’s ever-growing stable of top-tier talent.
Harrington will have been left incensed by his missed cut in Dubai having finished bogey-bogey in round two to miss out by the minimum. The 53-year-old still fancies his chances of winning on the DP World Tour, and tougher setups like the one last week at the Mijalis Course likely present the best opportunity, even if the field is deeper than that he’ll encounter in Ras Al Khaimah, but he’s yet to miss the cut in his three previous starts at Al Hamra and was 25th here in 2023 and 27th the year prior.
The winning tally this week will likely be in sub -20, so bogeys and doubles will be heavy punishment. Harrington is still more than capable of stringing the necessary birdies together, but it’s been the costly errors that have held him back.
Having battled through the minefield that is the Challenge Tour in 2024, Purcell can be given a pass for missing the cut in both the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa and the Afrasia Bank Mauritius Open at the end of last year, and with his batteries recharged, will be keen to hit the ground running in his first start of 2025.
Retaining his playing rights for 2026 will be the Portmarnock man’s number one priority for the season ahead – and it’s a long season – but the earlier that he gets Race to Dubai points on the board, the easier it will be for him to loosen up and play the kind of golf that he knows he’s capable of.
But with DP World Tour starts having been few and far between in the last few years, each week is going to serve as a learning curve as he adapts to courses he’s seeing for the first time and unfamiliar faces in opposition.
Having both Harrington and McKibbin in the field will likely be of help, however, and the three-time major champion in particular will be keen to impart with any knowledge and assistance that he can throw in Purcell’s direction.
The winds that often sweep through the Gulf aren’t expected to kick up too strongly this week, which could go either way for Harrington and Purcell for whom links golf comes naturally, but should play into McKibbin’s favour as a high ball-hitter.
The conditions should also play into the favour of pre-tournament favourite and defending champion Thorbjorn Olesen, however. The Dane cruised to a six-stroke victory here last year having come fourth in 2023 and is the highest-ranked player in the field.
World number 89 Ryan Fox has shown a resurgence of form having struggled in the early stages of 2024 and the 2022 champion will again fancy his chances of reasserting himself at the sharp end of the Race to Dubai rankings before heading back to the United States having done just enough to secure his PGA Tour card last season.
Both McKibbin and Harrington should feature heavily in Friday’s TV coverage as they’ll be among the featured groups but will be nearing the end of their rounds when Sky Sports’ broadcast opens on Thursday. McKibbin will be alongside 2016 PGA Championship winner Jimmy Walker and Italian Guido Migliozi and they play at 04:10 on Thursday and at 08:45 on Friday, while Harrington is joined by Spanish Open champion Angel Hidalgo and English Team Cup participant Matthew Jordan 20 minutes earlier each day.
Purcell is grouped with Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer and Swede Joakim Lagergren and they are the second-to-last group in the early wave on Thursday, teeing off 30 minutes later than McKibbin.
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