Like the Eurovision Song Contest including Israel and Australia, golf’s European Tour has long stretched continental boundaries. It first went to Dubai in 1989, has counted the US majors since 1998 and this season only 17 tournaments were actually in Europe, out of the 42 on what is now the DP World Tour.
Rory McIlroy barely plays in Europe, but that has not stopped him from being European Tour champion six times and he is favourite to add another. McIlroy has won seven times in Dubai, where the tour’s final event begins next Thursday (Sky Sports Golf, 7am), and had nine top-three finishes in Abu Dhabi, which concludes on Sunday. Like T.E. Lawrence, that noted bunker player, it’s hard to beat McIlroy in the desert. A seventh title would put him one behind “Monty”. Colin Montgomerie, that is, not the hero of El Alamein.
Newsletters
Register to hear the latest from the Observer
View more
For information about how The Observer protects your data, read ourPrivacy Policy
The men’s tennis season also concludes, with the ATP Finals in Turin (this Sunday, Sky Sports Tennis, 11am, to next Sunday). The event for the world’s top eight players can throw up an unexpected champion, but it would be a shock if it wasn’t either Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz.
Would it also be a shock for Wales to beat Argentina at rugby union (Sunday, TNT Sports 1/S4C, 3.10pm)? The question would have once got you flung out of any pub from Cardiff to Colwyn Bay. Not now. Wales’s men’s team ended a record run of 18 defeats by beating Japan in July but they are 12th in the world, while Argentina are sixth. It may be a coincidence that the losing streak began shortly after wing Louis Rees-Zammit went to try his luck in American football. With “Rees Lightning” back, will good times return?
After a difficult week following criticism of her score-settling autobiography, things don’t get easier for Mary Earps on Wednesday in the Champions League (BBC iPlayer, 8pm). The Paris Saint-Germain gardienne returns to Manchester United, her former club, where she says that she drank vodka to numb her feelings. PSG lost their first two matches of the campaign, to Wolfsburg and Real Madrid, while United have won twice. Arsenal, the defending champions, play at Bayern Munich earlier that day (Disney+, 5.45pm).
Twenty-eight of the 48 teams who will play at the next men’s World Cup have now qualified, including England, who seek to extend their run of clean sheets in competitive matches to nine against Serbia on Thursday (ITV1, 7.45pm). Scotland face Greece next Saturday (BBC Two, 7.45pm) before a winner-takes-all home match against Denmark on 18 November, while play-off hopefuls Wales face Liechtenstein on the same day (BBC Two, 5pm). Even the most pessimistic of Welshmen will feel confident about winning that.
Photograph by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images