Many stars at the BMW PGA Championship, one of the symbolic tournaments of the DP World Tour, equated by many to a Major, third event of the five of the Rolex Series scheduled from September 19 to 22 with a prize pool of nine million dollars and first place of 1,530,000 dollars.
DP World Tour, schedule
On the Wentworth Club course, at Virginia Water in England, the quality field will include Matteo Manassero and Francesco Molinari, who won the competition in 2013 and 2018 respectively (in addition to Rocca in 1996), Guido Migliozzi, Edoardo Molinari and Andrea Pavan in a context that includes nine players among the top 30 in the world rankings and a total of 15 among the top 50.
Among the many competitors capable of putting on a show, the three protagonists of the previous Irish Open are attracting attention: the Dane Rasmus Hojgaard, winner, the Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, world number three (his BMW PGA Championship in 2014), second, and Matteo Manassero, best Italian (9th) in the Race To Dubai (order of merit), third, who gave life to a final round of great intensity and class.
They will be among the favorites together with the English Tommy Fleetwood (no. 12 in the World Ranking), Aaron Rai (no. 22) and Matt Fitzpatrick (no. 28), the Scot Robert MacIntyre (no. 16), the Australian Adam Scott (no. 17), the French Matthieu Pavon (no.
26) as well as the American Billy Horschel (no. 24) and the Irish Shane Lowry (no. 29), the latter having won in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Without forgetting the other six among the fifty: the Austrian Sepp Straka, the English Justin Rose, the Danish Nicolai Hojgaard, twin of Rasmus, the Koreans Byeong Hun An and Si Woo Kim and the Swede Alex Noren, the last two past winners in 2015 and 2017.
Also to follow are the Americans Peter Malnati and Mark Hubbard, the Belgian Thomas Detry, Austrian Bernd Wiesberger, Scotsman Ewen Ferguson, Frenchman Victor Perez, Englishman Matt Wallace, South African Thriston Lawrence and Japanese Rikuya Hoshino.
New Zealander Ryan Fox, 37, from Auckland, is defending the last of the four titles he won on the circuit, with a list of victories that also includes three successes on the PGA Tour of Australasia, two on the Challenge Tour, three on the Charles Tour, his home circuit, and six others around the world.
In 2024 he played on the PGA Tour with three top tens in twenty-one matches, but with the other placings in the middle and low rankings and with seven cuts. Of the Italians, Migliozzi returns, second Italian in the European ranking (14th) and eighth in the European Masters before giving up the Irish Open.
Pavan has been in the money for five outings with 12th place in the Czech Masters. Edoardo Molinari, continental vice-captain at the next Ryder Cup, is swinging. It is the fourth Back 9 event of the nine that will lead to the Genesis Championship (24-27 October), at the end of which the top 110 of the Race To Dubai will have the card for the DP World Tour 2025.
Then the conclusion with the two Play-Offs, both included in the Rolex Series, the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship (7-10 November) to which the top 70 of the Race To Dubai will be admitted, who will be reduced to 50 in the following DP World Tour Championship (14-17 November).
It is also the fourth qualifying tournament to enter by right (six places in the Ryder Cup Points List) in Team Europe for the challenge against the United States in 2025 (Bethpage Black Course, 26-28 September, Farmingdale USA).
