Former US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick has expressed reservations about heading to Dubai for the season-ending DP World (European) Tour Championship due to the ongoing war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The Englishman is the defending champion, but concerns over his safety and a change in family circumstances have made him reluctant to travel to the United Arab Emirates for the November tournament.<\/p>\n
Tour officials are currently reviewing safety protocols for the lucrative climax of the play-off series and the Abu Dhabi Championship, which precedes it.<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick, the world number four, said on Wednesday: \u201cBeing completely honest as things stand right now, I would say I\u2019m not that comfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few things have obviously changed for me (in terms of) perspective and stuff. I\u2019ve had a child in August and that obviously changes things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for me, as things right now, it would feel a little bit weird given what I\u2019m reading elsewhere. <\/p>\n
\u201cThings can change overnight, I\u2019m sure, and I think it seems to be going down that path of things are getting better. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know they changed (the advice) from essential travel only to one step better than that. I know the Tour has been on this for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if the tour does go, I\u2019m sure they have had the best advice possible but, as things stand right now, I wouldn\u2019t necessarily be too keen on going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick was speaking at Wentworth, where the PGA Championship, the European Tour\u2019s flagship event, gets under way on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old is in a group that includes newly crowned Irish Open champion Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s arguably the best event on the Tour,\u201d Fitzpatrick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo sort of etch your name in history with some of the winners of this event would be an amazing feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick has expressed reservations about heading to Dubai for the season-ending DP World…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1262,1263,4593,1625,4598,4595,4597,58,4594,40,61,4596],"class_list":["post-12648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-matt-fitzpatrick","tag-abu-dhabi-championship","tag-dp-world-tour-championship","tag-dubai-golf","tag-european-tour","tag-golf-news-2024","tag-golf-safety-concerns","tag-golf-travel-risks","tag-matt-fitzpatrick","tag-middle-east-conflict-golf","tag-shane-lowry","tag-tyrrell-hatton","tag-wentworth-pga-championship","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117285869569727385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}