Yorkshire's rival golfers chasing play-off glory in the heat of Abu Dhabi

Given England has produced only four major champions in half a century, it is always a notable coup that two are from Sheffield in 2016 Masters winner Danny Willett and 2022 US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick.

Yet neither has made it to Yas Links for the penultimate event of the season; Willett after a year in which he has been battling back to fitness after shoulder surgery and Fitzpatrick due to what he admitted a month ago had been his worst year since breaking onto the tour a decade earlier.

So the spotlight falls on a quintet of Yorkshiremen, neither longer in the tooth than in his second season but all showing signs of being capable of winning either in Abu Dhabi this week or when the field is narrowed down to the final 50 in Dubai for the DP World Tour Championship the following week.

Dan Bradbury of Wakefield is the highest Yorkshireman on the Race to Dubai despite a second season in which for a long time he failed to replicate the feats of his maiden campaign until giving it the sudden shot in the arm of a second career victory at the Open de France last month.

The 25-year-old is 23rd in the rankings, six spots higher than the surprise package of the season, Joe Dean of Sheffield.

The College Pines professional was doing shifts as a supermarket delivery driver this time last year and even after negotiating his way through the six rounds of qualifying school the 30-year-old still didn’t start his maiden attempt at the tour until the season was three months old.

Nevertheless, Dean has hit the headlines with runner-up finishes in Kenya, Holland and a third-place at the recent Madrid Masters.

In 36th place is another 30-year-old in Northallerton’s Dan Brown who might not have yet replicated the win he had in his rookie season last year, but he arguably outdid that by twice leading the Open at Troon in July en route to a 10th-place finish that he followed up with top-four finishes in Ireland and Andalucia. One spot below him is a second rookie, Sam Bairstow, the 26-year-old left-hander from Sheffield who graduated from the Challenge Tour. His debut season has been solid with four top-six finishes including runner-up behind Bradbury in France.

Another looking for his first win is Alex Fitzpatrick, who has had five top-10 finishes, three in the last three months, in his debut campaign.

All of them could still land one of the 10 places on next season’s PGA Tour offered to the highest-ranked players at the end of the season not already exempt.

Four-time major champion and reigning Race to Dubai winner Rory McIlroy leads the order of merit again and will look to strengthen that position in Abu Dhabi.

He would love nothing more than a “boring” end to the season as he bids to win a sixth Race to Dubai title with a week to spare.

“If I go out and win this week it makes it a bit boring next week. But I won’t find it boring, it will be lovely,” McIlroy said.

“All I can focus on is the task at hand and trying to play as well as I can this week, give myself another chance to win. I’ve had a lot of good chances this year, I’ve converted a couple but I’ve let a few slip away.

“The last couple of years I’ve recommitted to trying to win the Race to Dubai.”