- Race to Dubai leader Eugenio Chacarra will play the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship at Yas Links.
- The top five in the Race to Dubai Rankings are all confirmed for the opening event of the Play-Offs.
- General admission is free on Thursday and Friday, with weekend tickets costing AED 90 in advance.
Eugenio Chacarra will start the DP World Tour Play-Offs as the man everyone else is chasing, and everyone else will be there.
The Spaniard has committed to the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship at Yas Links from November 5-8, and with Patrick Reed and Casey Jarvis also confirming their places, the five leading players in the Race to Dubai Rankings will all tee it up in the Play-Offs opener. Rory McIlroy and defending champion Aaron Rai were already in the field.
Related: Race to Dubai Rankings 48/2026
Can Chacarra join Seve and Rahm?
Only two Spaniards have finished a season as European Number One: Seve Ballesteros and Jon Rahm. Rahm’s second DP World Tour Championship win made him the first since Ballesteros to top the Race to Dubai. Chacarra wants to be the third.
“It would mean the world,” said Chacarra. “Those two guys are heroes for me as a Spanish golfer. Seve did everything for European and Spanish golf, and then Jon, it’s a guy that I’ve been looking up to since he went to college and professional golf. What he has accomplished, it’s amazing. Hopefully I can put my name on that trophy too. That’s one of the goals.”
Rahm will be at Yas Links too, making his Abu Dhabi debut a week before returning to the Dubai course where he has won three times.
Chacarra took the lead in the rankings at the DP World India ChampionshiDP World India Championshipp on October 18, when he played 25 holes on a weather-delayed final day at Delhi Golf Club and closed with a 70 to win by two shots on 21-under. That was his third title of 2026, after back-to-back wins at the KLM Open and the DS Automobiles 83° Open d’Italia in June, and his fourth on the DP World Tour following the 2025 Hero Indian Open at DLF Golf and Country Club. The victory also lifted him from 50th to 39th in the Official World Golf Ranking.
It came barely a fortnight after he fractured a toe on a midnight trip for a glass of water before the Open de España, where he went on to share second.
Reed wants his spot back
Chacarra’s win ended a stay at the top for Reed that had lasted more than seven months. The American moved in front in February after winning the Hero Dubai Desert Classic by four shots and the Qatar Masters by two, either side of a play-off loss at the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship. He has added three more top-ten finishes in 19 starts, including a runner-up finish at the Amgen Irish Open in September.
He made the cut on the number in Delhi before a third-round surge took him to 6-under, not enough to stop Chacarra going past him.
“Eugenio has played some incredible golf to get to where he is, so it’s going to be a great battle over the next few weeks,” said Reed. “Abu Dhabi is a big week in that race, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the UAE, where my season really took off.”
The 2018 Masters champion would become only the second American to finish as European Number One, after Collin Morikawa in 2021.
Jarvis arrives after a near miss in Korea
The South African won back-to-back titles in February, sealing his maiden victory at the Magical Kenya Open with a birdie-eagle finish before winning his national open, the Investec South African Open Championship, a week later.
He nearly added a third at the Genesis Championship on Sunday. Jarvis led after the first round, shared the halfway lead with Antoine Rozner and played in the final group alongside Yuto Katsuragawa, closing to within one shot after eight holes before trouble at the 9th dropped him three back. A win would have lifted him to second in the rankings; instead Katsuragawa took the title from 106th in the Race to Dubai.
“When you look at the names around me in the Race to Dubai, it’s a real test, but that’s what makes it so exciting,” said Jarvis.
McIlroy and Rai complete the five
McIlroy, who successfully defended his Masters title in April, is chasing an eighth Race to Dubai crown, which would draw him level with Colin Montgomerie’s record haul of Harry Vardon trophies. He finished tied third at Yas Links last year after a closing 62.
Rai returns as a major champion. Last November the Englishman beat Tommy Fleetwood in a play-off after both finished on 25-under, and in May he won the PGA Championship at Aronimink. His results across the four majors also earned him the inaugural Rory McIlroy Award.
How the Play-Offs work
The leading 70 available players in the rankings make up the field at Yas Links. The top 50 after Abu Dhabi go through to the DP World Tour Championship on the Earth course at Jumeirah Golf Estates from November 12-15.
Both are Rolex Series events and carry 21,000 points between them, more than four Back 9 events combined, so the standings can still shift sharply over the fortnight. Chacarra’s lead is far from safe.
Tickets and off-course entertainment
General admission is free on Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday tickets cost AED 90 when booked in advance, against a gate price of AED 100, and children aged 17 and under go free all week.
The Bar on Nine Ticket+ option returns from AED 180, which includes an AED 100 food and drink voucher. At the top end, the air-conditioned Championship Chalet on the 18th green starts at AED 1,600.
The organisers are running a Family Weekend across both Saturday and Sunday to mark the UAE Year of the Family. Every ticket includes the Future Falcons Kids’ Zone, and there are free lessons for young golfers, trick-shot shows and a long putt challenge in the Championship Village.
Live music follows play each day on the main stage: Scottish singer-songwriter Greg Pearson on Thursday, Abu Dhabi trio Speed Wagon on Friday, indie cover band Wet Grass on Saturday and Ollie Chapman, who started out at 16 opening for Stormzy in Dubai, on Sunday.
Click here for more information and to book your tickets.
Related: Yuto Katsuragawa Wins in Korea From 106th in the Race to Dubai
Simon Bale
Simon Bale is the publisher of Golf Today. A low single-figure handicap golfer, he was previously a major shareholder and course reviewer for Top100GolfCourses.com for over a decade, starting in 2010. Through this role, he developed extensive knowledge of golf course design and architecture while playing more than 300 courses worldwide.