Matt Fitzpatrick capped off a dramatic final day at Jumeirah Golf Estates by winning the DP World Tour Championship 2025, while Rory McIlroy claimed the Race to Dubai crown for a record seventh time.
Fitzpatrick sealed his third DP World Tour Championship title with a par on the first play-off hole after he and McIlroy finished regulation play tied at 18-under-par on the Earth Course. The Englishman forced the play-off with an outstanding late surge, making clutch birdies on the 14th, 15th, and 18th to erase a three-shot deficit and rise out of the crowded pack at 17 under.
McIlroy, meanwhile, delivered one of the most memorable finishes of the season. After bogeys on the 12th and 16th threatened to derail his title bid, the Masters champion responded spectacularly, hitting a superb approach to 16 feet on the final hole and holing the eagle putt to join Fitzpatrick at the top.
In the play-off, McIlroy’s tee shot found the creek, and after a penalty drop, his approach found the bunker. Fitzpatrick’s third shot landed in the rough, but his exceptional short game once again proved decisive. He chipped to inside three feet, leaving McIlroy with a 20-foot par putt to extend the contest. The Northern Irishman missed, and Fitzpatrick calmly holed his par to lift the trophy.
Fitzpatrick’s victory moved him to third in the season-long standings, while McIlroy, despite missing out on the title, finished the year as Race to Dubai No. 1 for the fourth consecutive season and seventh overall. This achievement moves him one ahead of Seve Ballesteros and within one title of Colin Montgomerie’s all-time record.
The week also saw ten PGA TOUR cards awarded for the 2026 season through dual membership: Marco Penge, Laurie Canter, Kristoffer Reitan, Adrien Saddier, Alex Noren, John Parry, Haotong Li, Keita Nakajima, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, and Jordan Smith all secured their spots.
Player Reactions
Matt Fitzpatrick:
“This means the world. I struggled early in the year, but to turn it around like this is incredible. I’m proud of how I played today. I didn’t hit a single bad shot. My team, my wife, my friends, my family… they all supported me during tough times. To be here now feels very special.”
Rory McIlroy:
“Carmen Ballesteros told me how proud Seve would have been. He means so much to this Tour and to the Ryder Cup team. To surpass him… I didn’t dream of getting this far.”
“I want it. It feels within reach. I’ve got a few more good years left, and I’d love to become the winningest European in terms of season-long titles.”
If you’d like, I can also prepare a short social media caption, headline variations, or a published magazine-style layout for this news.
About the DP World Tour
The DP World Tour is the main men’s professional golf tour of the European Tour group.
As golf’s global tour, we showcase global talent in global destinations and use our platform to build, entertain and connect our global community.
GLOBAL TALENT: We provide pathways and a platform for the leading international talent, bringing together golfing icons, national heroes and emerging stars from around the world.
GLOBAL DESTINATIONS: We stage tournaments in iconic cities and locations around the world and each week we celebrate and showcase the rich diversity of the courses, cities and cultures we visit.
GLOBAL COMMUNITY: We build, entertain and connect communities through our commitment to innovation, creative content and having a positive social and environmental impact.
Our 2025 Global Schedule features 42 tournaments in 26 different countries and comprises three distinct phases: five ‘Global Swings’, the ‘Back 9’ and the ‘DP World Tour Play-Offs’. It features five Rolex Series events – the premium category of events on the DP World Tour – and four Major Championships, all of which count towards the Race to Dubai Rankings, the Tour’s season-long competition which concludes at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
DP World, the leading provider of global smart end-to-end supply chain and logistics solutions, has been the title partner of the DP World Tour since the start of the 2022 season, the Tour’s 50th season following its formation in 1972.
We also enjoy the support of many of the world’s leading business brands with DP World, Rolex, Aldar, AWS, BMW, Buffalo Trace Distillery, Emirates, Fortinet, Nexo and Vestas as Official Partners.
About the European Tour group
The European Tour group administers the DP World Tour, the HotelPlanner Tour, the Legends Tour and the G4D Tour and, as the Managing Partner of Ryder Cup Europe LLP, stages golf’s greatest team contest, the Ryder Cup, in partnership with the PGA of America.
The European Tour group has Strategic Partnerships with the PGA TOUR, the Sunshine Tour, the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, the China Golf Association (CGA), the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO), the Korea Professional Golfers’ Association (KPGA), and the TATA Steel Professional Golf Tour of India. These partnerships provide global pathways for players from across the world to compete internationally on the DP World Tour, the main men’s professional golf Tour of the European Tour group which was established in 1972, as well as the HotelPlanner Tour.
