Dyson aims to gatecrash elite and head to Dubai with Willett

Sheffield’s Danny Willett and Malton’s Simon Dyson are among the 78 players vying over the next four weeks to win a share of £19m in the inaugural Final Series.

The starting gun fires today with the £4.3m BMW Shanghai Masters and culminates in the Middle East on November 14-17 at the Dubai World Championship.

Willett is 55th on the order of merit thanks to last week’s third-place finish at the Perth International, and is certain to get into both the Turkish Airlines Open and the Dubai finale.

Dyson, who stands 66th, is only certain of appearing this week and in a fortnight’s time in Turkey, with a good finish at either likely to see him gatecrash the top 60 on the money list and reach Dubai.

Neither are in next week’s elite field for the last WGC event of the year and second Final Series tournament, the HSBC Champions, again in Shanghai.

Nevertheless, Willett comes into the first play-off event in his best form of a season in which he has been plagued by a back injury.

He spent much of the Spring on the sidelines, sitting out 11 weeks as he rehabilitated his lower back.

“I had 20-odd weeks off with the back injury all told,” said Willett as he left Australia, rueing a poor performance on the greens for costing him victory.

“I’ve worked hard on getting the injury right and that now feels pretty good, so everything is coming together nicely, and it’s a good time of the year to be playing well.

“I’m relatively fresh whereas some other guys might not be because I’ve not really played much. I’ve probably only been fully fit eight times. I‘ll take what happened in Perth and see if I can take that to China and play well there.”

While Willett and Dyson chase the big bucks, and Harrogate’s John Parry waits to see if he makes the field for Turkey, the reality is a lot harsher for Hull’s Richard Finch.

His best-of-the-season finish of seventh at the Perth International last week was not the third place he required to keep his card on the European Tour, meaning while his county compatriots chase the dollars in Dubai, he will be trying to regain his playing privileges at qualifying school in Catalunya, Spain.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about this week, it’s about the whole season,” he said after Perth.

“This game is performance-related and the results don’t lie. This season hasn’t been good enough, but with a good end to the year, it could yet be.”