Bernd Wiesberger (Getty Images)

By Kent Gray
Jumeriah Golf Estates plays host to the European Tour’s season decider for the 11th time this week with five players still in the hunt for the Race to Dubai title. Here’s six things you need to know about the $8 million DP World Tour Championship which begins on the Earth course at JGE on Thursday morning.

RELATED: Thursday’s first-round tee times at JGE

Down to the wire for Wiesberger
After victories at the Made in Denmark, Scottish Open and Italian Open this season, a feat all the more remarkable after a wrist injury condemned the Austrian to seven months on the sidelines last year, Bernd Wiesberger has destiny in his own hands this week.

The Race to Dubai pole-sitter can become European No.1 for the first time by winning on Earth this week or finishing solo second. Few would deny him the glory, but four men will surely try…

The Chasers
The DPWTC winner will cash the biggest first prize in tournament golf, $3 million, and more than 2,000 rankings points.

The money would be nice but it’s the second number that will motivate Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick, the quartet mathematically capable of eclipsing Wiesberger to become European Tour No.1 in this final, four-round circumnavigation of Earth.

Open champion Shane Lowry (Getty Images)

There are numerous points permutations heading into the final Rolex Series event of 2019 but basically Fleetwood, Rahm and Lowry can win the R2D title with victory this week providing Wiesberger finishes lower than solo second (if Fleetwood wins), lower than T-2 with one other (if Rahm wins) and lower than T-4 with one other (if Fitzpatrick wins). Fitzpatrick has the lowest odds as he’d also need Fleetwood to finish lower than solo second.

Tommy’s Impeccable Timing

Fleetwood’s timing has been impeccable. With his emotional playoff victory at last week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South African, the 28-year-old Englishman not only netted $2.5 million – the biggest first prize in European Tour history until this week – but also soared eight places up to second in the R2D standings.

The fan favourite will clinch the season title if he wins this week and Wiesberger finishes lower than solo second, and/or with a top placing if a series of final placings involving the Austrian, Rahm, Lowry and Fitzpatrick goes his way.

It wouldn’t surprise if Fleetwood gets up. He won the R2D in 2017, had a good chance to defend in 2018 before surrendering the title to good pal Francesco Molinari and comes into JGE on the back of a remarkably consistent run.

In the 22 months between his fourth European Tour win – the 2018 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – and last week’s fifth triumph in South Africa, Fleetwood has rattled off three-second place finishes and 10 top 10s to move back inside the top 10 of the OWGR.

Quality Everywhere
The field for the season decider has been trimmed from 60 players previously to 50 this year and quality abounds. Major champions Francesco Molinari, Danny Willett, Justin Rose, Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy (Lowry is also the defending Open champion) can’t win the R2D but are legitimate threats for the Tour Championship’s $3 million payday – and to throw a spanner in the R2D abacus.

McIlroy enters the week fresh from his WGC win in Shanghai. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

After winning $15 million for sealing a second FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour and joining the PGA Tour’s exclusive $50 million career earnings club after winning the WGC HSBC Champions in Shanghai earlier this month, McIlroy isn’t short of a bob, nor form. His play, and press conferences, are not to be missed this week.

Fleetwood, Rahm, Willett, Rose, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren are former Rolex Series title winners in the field. After a week to freshen up from his victory in an epic six-man playoff at the Turkish Airlines Open, don’t be surprised in Hatton features on the leaderboard late Sunday.

Rookie Race
There is considerable Middle East interest in the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie-of-the-Year race which will also be decided on Earth. Two of the four players still in the fight are Scot Robert ‘Bob’ MacIntyre, a former MENA Tour winner, and Spaniard Adri Arnaus, now a Dubai-resident.

MacIntyre with the spoils of success at the 2017 Sahara Kuwait Championship on the MENA Tour.

American Kurt Kitayama and Italy’s Guido Migliozzi are the other players contending. Going into the week, MacIntyre, Kitayama, Arnaus and Migliozzi occupy 11th, 12th, 37th and 40th spots in the R2D standings respectively.

EDGA Dubai Finale
On the undercard this week is the the European Disabled Golf Association (EDGA) Dubai Finale, a new 36-hole event for golfers of determination on Friday and Saturday.

The tournament will feature six players from World Ranking for Golfers with Disability, including English pair Mike Browne and George Grove, Irishman Brendan Lawlor, France’s Charles-Henri Quélin, Chris Biggins of America, and Australian Geoff Nicholas, plus two wildcard invitations of Joakim Bjorkman and Chad Pfeifer.

Irishman Brendan Lawlor.