(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The entire focus, and quite rightly, will be on the two Race to Dubai combatants Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood and while the Italian and the Englishman would be locked in battle at the Earth Course of the Jumeirah Golf Estates, Jon Rahm will have his own agenda - defending the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
The 24-year-old Spaniard beat Thailand's Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Irishman Shane Lowry by a stroke to add to the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, on his debut season on the European Tour.
That saw him being crowned the European Tour Rookie of the Year and Rahm, who this season clinched the Open de Espana by defeating Ireland's Paul Dunne by two strokes as well as a win of epic proportions against the legendary Tiger Woods in the Ryder Cup, was looking to a successful defence.
"It feels good to be back. Hard to improve on what I did last year," Rahm said on Wednesday. "It feels great. You know, I was able to be defending champion for three events this year. In Torrey, I played great the first two days. I was in the final group. I didn't play great on the weekend. In Ireland, I was doing okay. I was doing good until that second hole, a triple-bogey doesn't help, but I still battled back and almost got myself into the play-off. So hopefully, I've gotten close and maybe this progression continues and I'm able to defend this week," he added.
Rahm has done well in the six Rolex Series events, winning two and finishing in the top 15 in all of them. And the Spaniard put it down to peaking at the right time and hoped he can carry that into this weekend.
"I think I just happened to play good in all of them. For the most part, when I think about the year, I played those events and I played so I peak in those events, the ones that matter to me. Clearly I'm doing something right, if I finished Top 15 in all of them and won twice, so hopefully I can keep that going this week and have a chance to win again on Sunday," said Rahm. Despite the strong performances, Rahm tempered down how things have panned this year, giving it a rating of seven-and-a-half out of 10 compared to last year.
"Well, I'm not going to do it based on last year because last year was a 10 out of 10. For I think what I set it out to be and how hard it was to live up to expectation, I'll give it a 7 1/2 out of 10," he said.
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