Sergio Garcia believes that Rory McIlroy's brilliant season deserves to be capped off with a second Race to Dubai crown in three years.
In the absence of McIlroy this week in Turkey, Garcia can still unseat the four-time major winner by capturing the Turkish Airlines Open. The Spaniard, though, currently ranked third on the money list, would also need to succeed in next week's season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
It is the same scenario for the second placed Jamie Donaldson and Germany's Marcel Siem lying fourth on the Race to Dubai.
"I'm a big believer if you have done something extraordinary to be able to achieve that, and to win the Race to Dubai before the last tournament is played, why shouldn't you be the winner?" said Garcia. "Rory has done something quite extraordinary this season and this summer, and he deserves to be the Race to Dubai Champion, even before we play the Dubai World Championship next week."
It is a view shared by Lee Westwood, who was crowned European Number One in 2000 and 2009. "If you look at Rory's season, he's won two major championships, a World Golf Championship, and our flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, which is a phenomenal year," said Westwood.
"If you put that up in somebody's career, those four tournaments that would a good career, and Rory's achieved that in six months."
And unlike the make-up of the FedEx Cup Play Off Series that saw unsung Billy Horschel scoop all the awards to end the year as No.1 with McIlroy settling for third, Westwood says there is no need for the Tour to alter the current Race to Dubai goal posts. "If we go down that path we are into copying the PGA Tour again and copying the FedEx Cup," Westwood warned.
Six Scots headed, by Colin Montgomerie, will tee up in Turkey including Livingston's Chris Doak, who is currently 79th on the Race to Dubai and needs to be inside the top 60 at the close of play on Sunday to qualify for the DP World Tour Championship.
Doak trails 188,270 points adrift of 60th place and needing a top-five finish if he is to make his Race to Dubai finale debut.
"It's a nice bonus to be playing in Turkey, but I was going to come anyway as I was first reserve up until last Friday," Doak admitted.
"[With] the money that's on offer you could climb 60 to 70 spots if you win. It's huge."
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