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Lee Westwood with the Race to Dubai trophy and Matthew Fitzpatrick with the DP World Tour Championship silverware.

By Kent Gray
At the end of an utterly bizarre year, a crazy old finish to the European Tour season was strangely fitting, peak 2020 if you like.

After bolting out of the blocks with four successive birdies to lead by as many as four before scraping home with a solitary stroke to spare, Matthew Fitzpatrick captured the DP World Tour Championship for a second time.

It was lovely to have two putts on the last for $3 million and until an unexpected bogey on the penultimate hole, it seemed the 26-year-old Englishman might even do the 2020 DPWTC-Race to Dubai double on Earth.

But after a dramatic back nine with multiple projected R2D leadership swings, the season-long prize ultimately ended up in the hands of 47-year-old Lee Westwood for the third time –  11 years after he did the Dubai double in 2009 when Jumeirah Golf Estates first became home to the season-decider and 20 years after winning what was then known as the order of merit.

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Lee Westwood hugs his former caddie, Billy Foster, who was on the bag for DP World Tour Championship winner Matthew Fitzpatrick this week.

After his victory at Abu Dhabi in January to become just the third player to win European Tour titles in four decades, Westwood book-ended 2020 in perfect fashion, finishing a shot shy of Fitzpatrick’s winning -15, 273 aggregate. He needed a little help (read misfortune) from others, first from Patrick Reed whose bid to become the first American to win the Harry Vardon Trophy was derailed by a long game diametrically opposed to his wedge wizardry.

Unheralded Englishman Laurie Canter, such a massive part of this memorable Sunday, sadly faltered late as well, double bogeying the 17th in the company of Fitzpatrick. An eagle down the last would have denied Westwood but a wayward approach and a chip from the drop zone slightly undercooked saw the Race to Dubai abacus fall Westwood’s way.

Canter eventually finished in a share of 5th place on – 12 with another of this week’s headline grabbers, Finn Sami Välimäki, a stroke further back from Reed and Viktor Hovland.

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RELIEF: Fitzpatrick can breathe after parring the 72nd hole to clinch the DPWTC for a second time.

This was Fitzpatrick’s sixth European Tour win and second Rolex Series gold star after his previous DPWTC win in 2016. It ended a two year title drought that was made all the more frustrating by five runner-up finishes.

“Yeah, amazing. The start I got off to, four birdies in the first four, 5-under through seven, it’s a dream start. Fortunately, I managed to pull away from that and really sort of create some distance,” Fitzpatrick said.

“It was just obviously a bit of a grind on the back nine. For me it was just about finishing one hole at a time and just getting through it. So managed to do that and yeah, finished well.”

With Westwood watching on nervously in the scorers’ hut after birdies on two of his last three holes in a closing 68, attention turned to whether Reed could hang on to the R2D lead he started the week with.

Even Fitzpatrick had no real idea how close he’d come to winning both titles.

“I had no idea about the Race to Dubai because I knew where I started the week at 16 [in the rankings], a lot needed to go my way. When I saw Lee at second, it did enter my head briefly going to 18, even if I win, probably not going to be — it’s probably not going to be enough, anyway.

“But all I was bothered about this week was winning. I turned up obviously 16th, so first, Race to Dubai didn’t really enter my head if I’m honest. I just wanted to win a lot this week. Just the work that I’ve put in the last couple of weeks on my game and just stuff that we talked about, me and Mike, yeah, it just felt like it kind of clicked.

“It’s one of those few weeks in your probably career, where you’re like, it feels really good and I’m playing really well, and you go and win. You can play poorly and win and sometimes you can play amazing and lose.

“To me this is a week in all honesty I felt I’m playing really well and I managed to convert it.”