Smylie, Hillier and Kobori chasing late season success
The 2024/2025
Elvis Smylie – chasing a big finish over the next two weeks.
DP World Tour season stages its penultimate event this week when the US$9 million Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship is played at the Yas Links Golf Club.
With the leading 50 in the Race to Dubai determining just who will advance to next week’s season-ending US$10 million DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, there is a lot still to play for this week, in addition to the substantial prizemoney on offer.
72 players will tee it up this week, amongst those in the line-up are two New Zealanders and one Australian.
Elvis Smylie in 17th place, Daniel Hiller in 20th and Kazuma Kobori in 38th place in the Race to Dubai rankings, are all assured of advancing to Dubai next week, but a good showing here will provide a boost of confidence ahead of their final test of the season.
New Zealand’s Daniel Hiller gets to play the event for the second occasion, having finished 46th on debut here two years ago, while for DP World Tour rookies Elvis Smylie and Kazuma Kobori, they will play the event for the first occasion.
Smylie has had mixed fortunes in his rookie season. The elegant Gold Coast golfer won the 2024 Australian PGA Championship, leading to his securing the title of leader of the Australasian Tour Order of Merit for the 2024/2025 season.
In 21 DP World Tour starts since his win in Brisbane, Smylie has recorded three top tens, including his runner-up finish in France a month ago. He has, however, missed the cut in each of his last two starts but with an excellent rookie season behind him, he heads to Abu Dhabi with nothing to lose and the possibility of a good week ahead of heading 100 kilometres or so east to Dubai.
A finish inside the top three this week might also bring Smylie into calculations for one of the ten PGA Tour cards now available to the leading ten players in the Race to Dubai Rankings at season’s end and not otherwise exempt from the PGA Tour.
Hillier’s season has also been a roller coaster of sorts, having finished runner-up in the lucrative Dubai Desert Classic early in the year, but there have been only two other top tens in his 23 DP World Tour starts this season, although he was very much in contention in India recently before a back-nine disaster cost him a second title. He finished 9th in that event.
Kobori is playing his first full season on the DP World Tour after his success as the leader of the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Order of Merit in 2023/2024, that title earning him playing rights in Europe.
Like Smylie, Kobori has missed his last two cuts, but he has enjoyed a more than satisfactory first season as he finds his way at this level. His runner-up finish at the British Masters and a 3rd place in Germany during the middle of the year played key roles in the position he now finds himself, and irrespective of how he plays over the next two weeks, he has done well.
