The DP World Tour Finals get underway on Thursday – Lindell is aiming for promotion to the PGA Tour
The DP World Tour is set to host the season-ending final this weekend. As usual, the final will be played at the Earth course at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. The 50 best players of the season are qualified for the competition.
Oliver Lindell is ranked 15th in the Race to Dubai standings, and he is in the final, tenth spot on the PGA Tour’s qualifying list. The top ten players who do not currently hold a valid PGA Tour card will earn one at the end of the season.
The course has been played through twice from Monday to Wednesday, and preparations have gone smoothly, even though this is the most important competition of his career so far. Of course, things will change once the players have their name tags pinned to their shirts on Thursday. The hope is to improve on last week’s performance, particularly in the driving stats. Help with this has been found from Lindell’s equipment manufacturer. The driver is certainly in the bag this week, and it has been used an exceptionally large number of times during the practice sessions.
“We’ve definitely managed to get a new head fitted to the driver, which was probably broken in the last tournament. Of course, you can’t work miracles in just a few days. The roughs are tight on this course, and you can’t even get 150 metres ahead from the fairway bunkers. You need to hit the fairways here with over 65 per cent accuracy with the driver. If you can manage that, things will go well,” said Lindell.
The Porvoo native had already put in a sensational performance making the Dubai final a year ago, during his debut season. He finished somewhere in the middle of the field at the time, and was fairly pleased with his performance, given that he was the third-worst putter in the competition. That will also be a key factor this week.
The greens at Jumeirah are nowhere near as good as the flawless greens at Yas Links last week. However, the greens have improved as the week has gone on.
“Putting is definitely the biggest story this week, though. It has also looked to be in great form over these three days, and let’s hope he stays that way for the rest of the week.”
The temperature has dropped by about five degrees from last week’s 36 degrees, and windy days are forecast for Dubai. Last year’s winning score was -18, set by Matt Fitzpatrick. If the weather forecasts prove accurate, the course may prove more challenging than it was a year ago.
“It’s difficult to predict the level of performance in advance. The course will certainly be adjusted to take account of the strong wind, so that it isn’t quite so ridiculously challenging.”
Lindell will start the competition on Thursday towards the end of the field, as the opening day is played in reverse order of the rankings. He will be paired with England’s Andy Sullivan, who is 200 points ahead of him in the rankings. The pair’s tee-off time is 9.35 Finnish time.