The Closing Swing and Phase One of the 2025 Race to Dubai come to a close at the Danish Golf Championship this week. Here are your five things to know.
Lacroix defends
Frederic Lacroix enjoyed the biggest day of his career 12 months ago as he stormed to a maiden DP World Tour title with a closing 65. The Frenchman began the final day four strokes off the lead but soon closed the gap courtesy of birdies at the first, fifth and seventh. The 29-year-old then moved three shots ahead of the chasing pack with further birdies on the tenth, 12th and 15th before parring his way home to finish on 14 under par and wrap up a memorable win. Countryman Romain Langasque and home favourite Lucas Bjerregaard finished in a tie for second on ten under. "I've been close a few times, especially this year, and I've just been improving the last few years, slowly but steadily," said Lacroix. "I just kept doing my thing and it's nice to see it all coming together with a win today."
A new venue
For the second week in a row the DP World Tour is visiting a new layout, with Furesø Golf Klub in Copenhagen this week playing host. Established in 1974, Furesø was designed by Jan Cederholm, with a renovation in 2015 by Tom Mackenzie. It is one of Denmark's largest golf clubs with 1,800 members, including DP World Tour professional Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who was named an Honory Member last year after playing at the club since a young age. Not only will the venue be staging a DP World Tour event for the first time, it will be a first visit to the capital for a tournament which was first staged in 2014. HimmerLand had staged the event every year since then barring two, with it heading to Silkeborg Ry in 2018 and Lübker Golf Resort last season.
Twin to win
Local heroes Rasmus and Nicolai Højgaard will be teeing it up this week on home soil and while it is fairly remarkable to have a pair of identical twins both playing at the very top of the game, here at the DP World Tour we've got pretty familiar with those two being on the same range. This week, however, they have some competition as German identical twins Yannik and Jeremy Paul are also teeing it up, making it double (or should that be quadruple) trouble for us all.
The end of the Global Swings
We’ve reached the final event of the Closing Swing, the last of the five Global Swings that form Phase One of the 2025 Race to Dubai schedule. There are 3,500 Race to Dubai Ranking points again on offer, 585 of those for the winner. Heading into the final event, Grant Forrest sits at the top of the standings after overhauling American Ryan Gerard with victory at the Nexo Championship over the weekend. However, with Forest and Gerard opting not to tee it up this week the chase is on. At third in the Swing Rankings, Marco Penge is the best placed to work his way to the summit, but the Englishman will need to finish fourth or better to have a chance of making up the 167.22-point difference. Joe Dean, Kristoffer Reitan and Nicolai Højgaard are the other three players in the Swing top ten in action this week. In theory, Casey Jarvis – who heads into the week in 37th place on the rankings – could win the Swing with a victory, but a host of other permutations would have to go his way. The winner of the Swing will earn exemption into each of the Back 9 events, if not already guaranteed, a $US200,000 bonus and a spot in the field at next month’s BMW PGA Championship. So far this season, the Global Swings have been won by John Parry (Opening Swing), Laurie Canter (International Swing), Keita Nakajima (Asian Swing) and Kristoffer Reitan (European Swing).
• Who can win the Closing Swing at the Danish Golf Championship?
Inside the field
In what is the penultimate event in the European qualification process for next month’s Ryder Cup, there are a host of players with experience of wearing the blue and yellow. Francesco Molinari, who memorably created history as the first European player to win all five of his matches in a Ryder Cup in 2018, is set for his tournament debut. Thomas Bjørn, who like Molinari will be a vice captain at Bethpage, is one 19 players from Denmark teeing it up and he has once again assumed the ambassadorial role of Tournament Chairman ahead of his ninth start in his home event. Chris Wood, Ross Fisher, Nicolas Colsaerts, Rafa Cabrera Bello and Oliver Wilson – a former champion in Denmark – also bring Ryder Cup experience. A host of dual DP World Tour and PGA TOUR members are competing this week too, including 2018 champion Matt Wallace, home stars like the Højgaards, Thorbjorn Olesen and Niklas Norgaard, along with Sweden’s Jesper Svensson and Finland’s Sami Välimäki.
