This week – and over the next few – there is a lot at stake for many of the Irish players competing on the various pro circuits and where they’ll be playing in the following 12 months very much hangs in the balance.
While the DP World Tour, LET and LPGA Q-Schools offer a glimmer of hope for some, it’s a tough road to navigate and akin to having all your eggs in one basket.
The DP World Tour
Conor Purcell’s maiden campaign on the DP World Tour hasn’t panned out the way he’d have hoped, and he goes into the Open de Espana ranked 146 in the Race to Dubai and, at the time of writing, the seventh alternate for next week’s DP World India Championship.
Purcell needs to finish inside the top 130 on the Race to Dubai to gain Category 19 status on the DP World Tour, which, though considerably lower than the Category 15 status he earned via promotion from the HotelPlanner Tour in 2024, would mean he’s still be playing most of his golf on the premier European circuit in 2026.
Finishing inside the top 115 would earn Category 10 status, but in order to make the sizeable leap up that high, he’d need to find a top-five finish or a couple of top-10s in his remaining events before the DP World Tour playoffs.
His current ranking would see him earn Category 20 status and HotelPlanner Tour Category 7, meaning even fewer starts on the DP World Tour and closer to a 50/50 split between it and the HotelPlanner Tour, leaving it tough to gain the requisite points on either to play his way back onto the main circuit.
Shane Lowry and Tom McKibbin are both joining Purcell in Madrid, and though both will primarily compete on other tours in 2026 and have their DP World Tour status secured, McKibbin, ranked 56th, is gunning for a place in the DP World Tour Championship which is cut off at 50 and Lowry, ranked a lowly 154th, may find himself on the outside looking in unless he produces something special over the closing weeks.
The HotelPlanner Tour
The HotelPlanner Tour heads to Hainan in China for the third-to-last event of the campaign and it’s crunch time for Liam Nolan and Max Kennedy. After a great start to the campaign playing on National Invitations, Nolan comes into this week ranked 32nd in the Road to Mallorca with the top 20 in the rankings at the end of the season gaining full promotion to the DP World Tour.
Last year, Purcell won the event, claiming his second win of the year, and effectively securing his DP World Tour status, and both Nolan and Kennedy will be hoping to follow suit and can do so with strong performances over the final three weeks.
Kennedy, ranked 40th, first needs to ensure that he’s inside the top 45 after the penultimate event – the Hangzhou Open – to take his place in the Rolex Grand Final, and the top 68 in the rankings are all in the field this week and all 68 can still push their way into the top 20 and earn one of the 19 cards available – JC Ritchie has already secured promotion – so the stakes are high.
The Alps Tour
On the Alps Tour, Ronan Mullarney heads to Italy and the Parma Alps Open – the penultimate event in the campaign – in fourth place in the Order of Merit where the top five at the conclusion of the Alps Grand Final earn promotion to the HotelPlanner Tour.
Mullarney topped the Order of Merit back in 2023 – and a victory in the Grand Final was the icing on the cake – but less than 400 points separate him from sixth-ranked Alvaro Hernandez Cabezuela, meaning every stroke will be crucial over the concluding two events.
Hugh Foley and Robert Moran have outside chances of pushing their way into the top five but would need to win the Grand Final to do so.
The Ladies European Tour
On the LET, four rookies in Annabel Wilson, Anna Foster, Sara Byrne and Canice Screene all travel to India to play in the fourth-to-last event of the season.
The top 60 players in the rankings retain full membership for 2026, with those ranked 61-100 gaining Category 10 and those ranked 101 and below needing to return to Q-School.
Foster, ranked 47th is on course to retain full membership, while Byrne, ranked 63rd is precariously placed with the top 64 in the rankings earning invites to the season-ending Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España. Wilson sits in 85th place in the Order of Merit, and though it’s unlikely that she’ll fall outside of the top 100, it is possible and she could easily climb into the top 60 with a couple of good weeks. Screene is ranked 142nd and would need a top-five finish to jump into the top 100 after this week, but has admitted that she’s prepared to go back to Q-School if necessary.
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