Fate has a way of dealing its own cards, and Rory McIlroy – who lost out to Matt Fitzpatrick in a playoff for the DP World Tour Championship on The Earth course in Dubai but won the season-long order of merit title to collect the seventh Harry Vardon Trophy of his career – revealed a meeting with Carmen Ballesteros, the widow of the late Seve, had only served to provide further inspiration in his quest to achieve great feats.
McIlroy’s latest order of merit win moved him to seven, one more than the legendary Ballesteros – who died aged 54 in 2011 – and one shy of Colin Montgomerie’s record eight.
An emotional McIlroy revealed he had met Carmen ahead of the final round. “She told me how proud he would have been. He means so much to this tour and to the European Ryder Cup team. We rally so much around his spirit and his quotes and everything he meant for European golf. To equal him last year was cool but to surpass him this year, yeah, I didn’t get this far in my dreams, so it’s very cool.”
McIlroy again provided the X-factor in dramatically eagling the 18th hole of the final round to post a 67 for 18-under-par 270 which put him level with Fitzpatrick, who had closed off with a 66.
RM Block
But the Northern Irishman lost out to Fitzpatrick in the playoff – his drive on the 18th which he’d eagled some 20 minutes earlier finding the creek from where he ran up a bogey six to the Englishman’s five – but still added to what has been a year to remember, having also won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam and winning the Amgen Irish Open.
In addition, he also won the Pebble Beach pro-am and The Players on the PGA Tour.
The world number two collected €1,082,736 for his runners-up finish behind Fitzpatrick but also won a bonus $2 million for winning the season-long order of merit.
McIlroy’s order of merit wins came in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2022, 2023, 2024 and now 2025 to move to seven in total.
Although he has completed his season’s work on both the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour, McIlroy has committed to play in next month’s BMW Australian Open, which he previously won in 2015.
