The clubhouse at Delhi Golf Club, host venue of the DP World India Championship, in a 2009 file photo. Photo: Arastu Gupta / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Eugenio Chacarra closed out the DP World India Championship with a 70 on Sunday, good for 21-under at Delhi Golf Club's Lodhi Course, and held on for a two-shot win over Daniel Hillier. It's Chacarra's third DP World Tour win of 2026 and his fourth overall, and it moves him to the top of the Race to Dubai with the season's closing stretch ahead.
Chacarra's third round did most of the work. A 63 at Delhi Golf Club built a 5-shot cushion heading into Sunday, and the number held for most of the day until Hillier made a late push. The New Zealander cut the gap to two shots before the finish but couldn't find the shot to draw level, finishing alone in second at 19-under. It was the closest the tournament had been since Saturday evening, and the kind of pressure that tests a big leader even when the margin itself survives. Chacarra's closing 70 was enough to see it out.
Behind them, the leaderboard was more compressed than the winning margin suggests. Adrian Meronk and Angel Hidalgo shared third at 15-under, six back of Chacarra. Meronk's week continues a strong run of form; our recap of his Alfred Dunhill Links win covers the result that kicked that stretch off. Defending champion Tommy Fleetwood finished T5 at 13-under, a step back from the title he won here in 2025, and Niklas Norgaard, who led after the storm-shortened first round covered in our earlier report, settled for T20 at 9-under alongside Aaron Rai, both 12 shots back. Patrick Reed finished T23 at 8-under, and Rory McIlroy closed with a 74 to finish T42 at 4-under, a quiet week by his own standard given where he sat after the opening round. Ryan Fox missed the cut after rounds of 76 and 70.
It's tempting to frame any win as a return from a dry spell, but that's not what this is. Chacarra has now won three times in 2026, the India Championship following a back-to-back June in which he took both the KLM Open and the Italian Open. It's his fourth DP World Tour title overall, and the story behind the first one is worth remembering here: he won the 2025 Hero Indian Open on a sponsor invite, a result that earned him full DP World Tour membership after he left LIV Golf following the 2024 season. That detail matters more than it might look. A sponsor invite win doesn't just add a trophy; it's what converted him from a player borrowing a start into a full member who no longer needs an invite to show up. He's a full tour member now, not a LIV player making a guest appearance, and this week's win reads as the continuation of genuinely good form rather than a comeback narrative. Three wins and a season-high points total in four months isn't a player rediscovering his game. It's a player who already had it.
Sunday's result reshuffled the top of the Race to Dubai. Chacarra moves into first with 4,092.89 points, pushing Patrick Reed down to second at 3,474.62 and ending Reed's run atop the standings. Rory McIlroy sits third at 3,144.86 despite the quiet week on the course. I've covered playoff races that swung on smaller margins than the gap atop this leaderboard, and there's still enough of the regular season left for the order to move again before Dubai. A single big week from Reed or McIlroy would close most of that gap, which is exactly why a result like this one, with the closing stretch still ahead, doesn't settle anything on its own. McIlroy's next confirmed start on the DP World Tour is the Abu Dhabi event, November 5 to 8, ahead of the season-ending Tour Championship in Dubai.
Chacarra's bag drew attention back in June, when he won the Italian Open, and Golf Monthly's what's-in-the-bag breakdown from that week listed a Titleist Vokey SM10 wedge setup at 42, 48, 53, and 61 degrees. That's the configuration reported at the Italian Open, not necessarily this week's bag, but the gapping itself is worth borrowing regardless of who's carrying it. Spacing four wedges roughly 5 to 8 degrees apart, as those lofts do, avoids the most common wedge-setup mistake: two wedges bunched close enough in loft that they produce nearly the same carry distance, which leaves a real gap somewhere else in the bag instead. Any golfer can check their own setup the same way, by simply subtracting the loft numbers stamped on each wedge, no launch monitor required. Anyone who suspects a real gap between two wedges, most often the gap wedge and the sand wedge, can confirm it without any gear at all: hit a handful of full swings with each off the same mats at a range and pace off the difference on foot.
With the season's closing stretch still ahead before the Race to Dubai settles, Chacarra now controls his own position at the top of it rather than chasing someone else's. Reed and McIlroy both have time to answer back, and Abu Dhabi will be the first real look at whether either does. For now, the order at the top belongs to the player with three wins already this year.
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