Race To Dubai / Paul Krishnamurty / 04 November 2008 / Leave a comment

The Order of Merit is gone and the Race To Dubai has begun as the new European Tour gets underway without a pause for breath. Paul Krishnamurty assesses the main candidates ahead of the opening event, the HSBC Champions.

With barely a moment to reflect on the 2007-2008 season and Robert Karlsson's triumph in the Order of Merit, the next European Tour campaign starts with immediate effect.

For the first time ever, the season will begin and end outside Europe, with Shanghai the opening staging post of the new Race to Dubai. Instead of the top-60 players qualifying for the usual lucrative season finale at Valderrama, matters will be finalised next November in the Dubai World Championship.

This increased global reach, not to mention greater prize money, is expected to attract more of the biggest stars who usually ply their trade in the States. Hopefully we'll see more of the likes of Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas, who are both playing in Shanghai. Even this week's defending champion Phil Mickelson, historically a rare and poor traveller, may play again before his annual miserable British fortnight in July.

However, on inspection of the full schedule, there's scarcely a significant change from the old Order of Merit, so all the old rules should apply when looking for the winner. The two Asian events over the next fortnight will, perversely, be played twice before the schedule becomes based on a calendar year in 2010. There will also be a new World Matchplay Championship, boasting a significant prize for money list purposes. Nevertheless, it remains likely that the keys to victory will be a big haul in the majors along with a steady stream of prize money in the regular European events.

In fact, given that this long-term market has proved fairly predictable over the years, several of the obvious candidates appear to represent very fair value from the start.

On the high street, Padraig Harrington deservedly starts favourite at [9.0], despite trading at significantly shorter in each of the last three years. His record in the Euro money list this century is exemplary, winning once, finishing second twice and making the top-3 in six of the last eight years.

Though he hasn't fired this autumn, nobody could dispute that Pod has made serious strides forward over the last 18 months. He's won three majors, and can now reasonably claim to be the man to beat in any company - or at least when Woods is injured. Purely on previous form, he would represent a decent long-term trade, but I'd prefer to look elsewhere simply because he has become unreliable in the bread and butter events. Without massive improvement in 2008 in this respect, he'd need to win at least one major, and that's no easy task.

At slightly better odds, Karlsson and Lee Westwood look far more reliable candidates. Both were extremely consistent, and just a little more luck on final days would have made either player a runaway winner of the last Order of Merit. Karlsson did get a change of luck with two titles in the autumn, the decisive blow in winning the money list, but Westwood didn't win a title all year; which makes his close third place an outstanding achievement. Again, I'll bet both players will trade much shorter than [11.0] at some stage in the year.

Last year's main fancy Henrik Stenson remains a star in the making, but is not my favourite player at the moment after a poor run. Ian Poulter has never been consistent enough to challenge in previous money lists. Martin Kaymer will win this one day, but still looks too inexperienced in the majors. And while they're all good enough, I very much doubt the likes of Mickelson, Kim, Sergio Garcia, Vijay Singh or Adam Scott will play enough events to seriously challenge.

Rather, as its early days in this long-term market, I would open up with a couple of trades at [20.0] on two English players I expect to make big progress in 2009.

Firstly, Ross Fisher made huge strides in the past twelve months, and ended the season as an almost permanent top-ten fixture and serious candidate every time he teed it up. He is virtually unrecognisable from the talented but wildly erratic player who threw away the Champions Trophy exactly a year ago. That wasn't the only big prize he let slip, making his final sixth place on the Order of Merit an impressive achievement. Further progress would make him a massive contender.

And having looked ahead at the courses being used for next year's majors, I'll be backing Paul Casey to break into the game's elite next year. Casey has already challenged twice in the Masters, and should be ideally suited by the US Open venue of Bethpage Black. He looks more comfortable than most Europeans in the big Stateside events, and seems to have developed much greater tee to green consistency in recent months. The only thing missing from Casey's game lately has been a lack of birdie putts, but I expect to see a change of luck soon. He has prospered on the early 'Far East Swing' of the European Tour previously, so hopefully those odds will shorten up considerably over the winter.