Jon Rahm (dated file photo, Ryder Cup, Bethpage Black, Sept 2025). Credit: Bryan Berlin, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Jon Rahm won a golf tournament again on Sunday, and it had been long enough that the moment carried its own weight. His 5-under 67 at Yas Links closed out the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship at 23 under, good for a two-shot win over Tyrrell Hatton and his first DP World Tour title in four years, according to the Associated Press via TSN. It also hands him a real, if narrow, path into this week's season finale.
Rahm, Hatton, Rory McIlroy and Francesco Laporta were tied for the lead at 20 under at one point on the back nine, per the AP. Rahm answered with three birdies in a five-hole stretch starting at No. 11 and never let the field back in. Hatton shot 68 to finish 21 under, two shots back. McIlroy, who opened Sunday with a birdie and an eagle before cooling off, carded 69 for 19 under and third place, four shots behind. Laporta, chasing his first DP World Tour title, fell out of the hunt with a triple bogey at the par-3 13th and finished alone in fourth at 17 under on a closing 72. Rahm banked a $1.5 million winner's check and called his round "pretty flawless" apart from one shot on the 17th, per the AP.
It's Rahm's first title since a seven-week break that included the birth of his second daughter, the family's fourth child, and the AP ties the win to the broader wind-down of LIV Golf, the circuit he is leaving behind. I'll admit I was quick to write off his ceiling once LIV's finances started wobbling earlier this year, and a flawless final round at Yas Links is a decent early correction to that read. He's finalizing his exit from LIV, reportedly giving up money still owed to him, and is expected to return to the game's established tours next season. The tour hasn't publicly detailed how his DP World Tour membership status was settled, and nothing here changes what we've reported on that question before.
The win vaults Rahm to No. 6 in the Race to Dubai standings, the AP reports, which gives him an outside chance at the season-long title. The catch: he needs to win the DP World Tour Championship on Dubai's Earth course, which starts Thursday, to have any real hope of closing the gap.
The more consequential move in the standings belongs to McIlroy. His third-place finish pushed him past Patrick Reed into second, behind only Eugenio Chacarra, a 26-year-old Spaniard in his first full season on tour who finished tied for 22nd in Abu Dhabi and still leads. McIlroy sits roughly 534 points behind Chacarra heading into the finale, with 2,000 points up for grabs for the winner, 1,335 for second and 752 for third, per the AP. A win in Dubai would put McIlroy in range of a record eighth Race to Dubai title, which would move him past Colin Montgomerie, who won it seven times back when it was still called the Order of Merit.
Golf Monthly's account of the win and the Irish Examiner's report each covered the same Race to Dubai wrinkle: McIlroy's move into second, and Chacarra's lead heading into Dubai.
The field heading into the DP World Tour Championship is unusually compressed at the top. Chacarra leads, McIlroy trails by roughly 534 points with a win worth 2,000, and Rahm needs the win outright just to have a mathematical shot. For a player on the DP World Tour's 2027 eligibility rules for departed LIV golfers, Rahm's result also matters beyond this week. It is a reminder of why the tour is worth winning back into. For the weekend golfer with no stake in Race to Dubai points, the simplest read is still the useful one: Rahm looked like a major champion again for four rounds, and that alone will shape how the 2027 schedule gets talked about long before anyone tees it up.
Data-backed reviews and advice that works. No brand spin.
