Dunne begins card battle in Paris; the facts and figures
Paul Dunne
Greystones' Paul Dunne begins his final push to keep his European Tour card at the Open de France in Paris.
The Greystones star has fallen from 65th to 299th in the world over the last 18 months and missed 12 cuts this year, including six of his last seven.
As a result, he's 116th in the Race to Dubai with only the top 117 projected to keep their cards after next week's Portugal Masters.
It means that Dunne, who has Dave McNeilly on his bag following his split with Darren Reynolds, is under huge pressure to make the cut at Le Golf National in Paris, where he has finished T13 and T21 in his last two appearances.
A similar result at the Ryder Cup venue would be enough for Dunne, who heads 117th ranked Swede Niklas Lemke by just 4.6 Race to Dubai points with top 20 finish this week worth 33 points and a win 460.
He's joined in Paris by Gavin Moynihan who needs a top-two finish to break into the top 117 in the Race to Dubai this week but will also have a chance to make a move in Portugal.
The European Tour released its "Provisional Top 110 Cut off on the Race to Dubai for 2020 Membership" on Monday.
The following players will be treated as "in addition" for those cut-offs used to define 2020 Membership only.
* Players in the top 50 of the OWGR who have played less than 25 Regular European Tour events in their career and have not played at least 6 Counting events in 2019 prior to WGC-HSBC Champions.
** Affiliate Members
***Ranked Members over 50 years of age
THERE ARE CURRENTLY 7 PLAYERS MEETING THESE CRITERIA
J Rahm*, P Reed*, T Finau**, B Horschel**, A Wise**, A Ancer**, M Woo Lee**
So the current but provisional cut off for this Membership Category for 2020 is 117 in the Race to Dubai. The official cut off will be defined at the conclusion of the Portugal Masters.
Dunne entered the final stretch of the season believing he had already racked up enough Race to Dubai points to be safe. He explained at Wentworth that he was more focussed on making the top 70 available players who qualify for next month's Turkish Airlines Open.
The European Tour projects that the cut off for Turkey will be between 80th and 85th in the Race to Dubai, which means Dunne will need to win at least another 136 R2D points in France and Portugal to make it to the Montgomerie Maxx Royal.
A top four this week is worth 137 points.
To qualify for the Nedbank Golf Challenge, he would need to be among the leading 60 available players with the cut off currently likely to fall between 68th and 73rd in the Race to Dubai.
Only the top 50 available players qualify for the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. However, Affiliate Members who are in the world's top 50 at the close of entries and entered in the event will be "in addition" to the field.
This means that if, for example, Tony Finau (an Affiliate Member in the Top 50 in the world and currently in the top 50 in the Race to Dubai) enters, the field for the final event of the season would be extended accordingly.
The new first prizes for the three final events and the Race to Dubai Bonus Pool have also been fixed.
Turkey $2,500,000
Nedbank $2,500,000
DPWTC $3,000,000
Race to Dubai Bonus Pool
Race to Dubai position - $Bonus Pool
$2,000,000
$1,200,000
$700,000
$600,000
$500,000