Manassero looks to cap career revival in Dubai as McIlroy eyes season-ending title

Matteo Manassero quit golf five years ago at the age of 26, tormented by a sport which gave him so many highs but was no longer making him feel happy.

On Sunday, he could punch a ticket to play across the Atlantic on the lucrative PGA Tour and be back in the big time, where so many think his game belongs.

The 31-year-old Italian will look to cap his career revival this week by becoming one of 10 players from the European tour to be eligible to claim dual membership and a PGA Tour card for the 2025 season.

The season-ending World Tour Championship starts on Thursday in Dubai and only an unlikely turn of events will deny Rory McIlroy from being crowned as the European tour’s best player for a sixth time, leaving him two off Colin Montgomerie’s record haul.

There will be more suspense elsewhere, though, notably in that race for those PGA Tour cards — a structural tweak created in 2022 in the wake of the so-called strategic alliance between the European tour and PGA Tour in the face of mounting pressure from the breakaway LIV Golf series.

The presence of Manassero in the 10-man list, as it stands, only elevates the interest levels.

Blessed with a smooth swing and a deft touch, Manassero was a golfing prodigy, winning the British Amateur in 2009, the silver medal at the British Open for low amateur the same year, and also becoming No. 1 amateur in the world.

By 2013, he’d won four events on the European tour — including the BMW PGA Championship, the flagship event on the tour, to move into the world's top 25.

Then came the career dip, which plunged him into self-doubt and ultimately retirement — albeit for only a few months while he assessed where to go with his life. He eventually decided to give golf another go, beginning his rebuild on the lowly Nordic Golf League and the Alps Tour, which is on the third tier of European golf.

His talent shone through and last year he sealed a return to the European tour, with a win at the Jonsson Workwear Open in March being universally celebrated in the golf fraternity.

That helped to put him in a strong position to claim the end-of-season bonus of a PGA Tour card, and he headed to Dubai in fifth place among non-exempt players, behind Thriston Lawrence, Rasmus Hojgaard, Paul Waring — the winner in Abu Dhabi last week — and Niklas Norgaard. Jesper Svensson, Thorbjørn Olesen, Rikuya Hoshino, Sebastian Söderberg and Jordan Smith make up the list, though the tour says any non-exempt player in the 50-man field can, statistically, break into the top 10.

Robert MacIntyre is living proof of how life-changing that can be. He was one of the 10 to claim a PGA Tour card after last year’s World Tour Championship and he has blossomed, winning two big PGA events — the Canadian Open and the Scottish Open — and rising to a career-high 15th in the world in August. He is No. 16.

“Career-changing, 100%,” MacIntyre said on Tuesday. “I’ve now got to the top level of professional golf, the top 25% of professional golfers. You can then pick your schedule and you’re in all the major events and you’re in all the top events you can play in and you can pick and choose, and that’s where you want to be.

“I think,” MacIntyre added, “the majority of golfers out here have got that dream, as well.”

If Hojgaard secures his PGA Tour card, he will join his twin brother Nicolai in the United States.

McIlroy on brink

Lawrence leads that list of PGA Tour hopefuls but has other things on his mind.

The South African is the only player who can prevent McIlroy from winning the Race to Dubai title — formerly the Order of Merit — and join the late Seve Ballesteros on six.

Lawrence has to win — nothing less is good enough — and then needs McIlroy to finish tied for 11th or lower.

“Rory has been an idol for me since growing up as a youngster,” the 27-year-old Lawrence said, “and being able to clinch it this week would be the cherry on the cake for myself.”

The smart money, however, is on McIlroy, who has shown extraordinary consistency in collecting a win — at the Dubai Desert Classic in January — as well as four runner-up finishes and three more top fives in his 12 European tour events this season.

“Rory is held to a higher standard than pretty much everybody else in the world of golf,” Tommy Fleetwood said. “But I think he’s shown amazing golf again this year, and he’s shown why he’s one of the best to ever do it.”