Fresh off their memorable victory at Bethpage Black, four of Europe’s Ryder Cup heroes are right back in action as they get set to contest the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland.
Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Robert MacIntyre and defending champion, Tyrrell Hatton are all in the field for the annual Pro-Am event staged at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and on the Old Course at St Andrews, where they’ll join a stellar field that includes major winners Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Danny Willett.
Fitzpatrick won the event back in 2023, where he shared the memorable experience alongside his mother who was his amateur partner for the week.
“Even with all my wins, aside from a Major Championship, you forget about them, but you always remember the one that you won with your mum, so it doesn’t get better than that,” Fitzpatrick said shortly after holing the final putt in front of the storied St Andrews hotel.
Given the dramatic nature of the European team’s victory in New York, and the wild celebrations that followed, they’ll be forgiven if they’re not firing on all cylinders in Scotland, but it’s a big week for the one Irishman in the field.
With just five DP World Tour events remaining on the 2025 schedule, Conor Purcell lies 157th in the Race to Dubai rankings and, at the time of writing, is the 11th reserve for next week’s Open de España at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid.
The four events that follow are the limited field India and Genesis Championships, and the two DP World Tour playoff events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, meaning that the Portmarnock man is in close to a ‘Last Chance Saloon’ situation this week in Scotland.
To retain full Category 10 DP World Tour membership for the 2026 campaign, he would need to climb into the top 115, while the top 130 earn Category 19 status with Category 6 HotelPlanner Tour.
A top-10 finish at the Dunhill Links may not be enough to see him climb into the top 130 – a top-five certainly would – on the Race to Dubai, but it would guarantee him a place in next week’s event in Spain without having to rely on withdrawals, though there is a good chance that he’ll move up the exemption order sufficiently to gain entry.
But he’s running out of time, and the fact that he grew up playing links golf means that this is a week he needs to make the most of.
