{"id":850551,"date":"2026-09-17T04:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T04:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850551\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T04:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T04:08:12","slug":"dp-world-tour-playoffs-matt-fitzpatrick-not-comfortable-traveling-to-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850551\/","title":{"rendered":"DP World Tour playoffs: Matt Fitzpatrick ‘not comfortable’ traveling to Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Fitzpatrick\u2019s life changed in the most significant and permanent of ways last month, when he and his wife Katherine welcomed their first child into the world.<\/p>\n

The new dad was asked about his comfort level with leaving his family later this year to play in a pair of DP World Tour playoff events, the Abu Dhabi Championship and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Despite having the opportunity to defend his DP World Tour Championship title<\/a>, Fitzpatrick was blunt in his response that his perspective had changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs things stand right now, I would say I\u2019m not that comfortable. No, I wouldn\u2019t be that comfortable,\u201d said Fitzpatrick.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick admitted that news coverage of the Iran War \u201ccan be very one-sided\u201d and difficult to discern the truth of where things stand in the conflict. Nonetheless, he was frustrated that a decision had yet to be made on where the playoffs would be located in 2026 \u2014 at their previously designated courses or at new venues outside of the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously frustrating that the decision hasn\u2019t been made so you can plan what\u2019s going on. But I understand there\u2019s obviously a lot of moving parts to that, and it\u2019s obviously difficult to make these decisions,\u201d he explained. \u201cI think if the [DP World] Tour does go, I\u2019m sure they have had the best advice possible on what that looks like. As things stand right now, I wouldn\u2019t necessarily be too keen on going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abu Dhabi\u2019s Yas Links has been tapped to host the Abu Dhabi Championship from Nov. 5-8, with Jumeirah Golf Estates set to host the $10 million finale at its Earth Course from Nov. 12-15. <\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick cited Formula 1 moving its Bahrain Grand Prix to Malaysia and calling off its Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as additional reasons for the DP World Tour to explore alternative host locations.<\/p>\n

The Qatar Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix remain on F1\u2019s calendar for late November and early December, with northern Italy rumored as the backup location for the Abu Dhabi race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard [F1] might not be going there, so begs the question, why would we, I guess,\u201d Fitzpatrick told reporters at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The first round of the BMW PGA Championship is underway at Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the instability in the Middle East is tough for anyone to plan events around but did stress that a transparent dialogue about the decision-making process was lacking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s been very vague the whole time and they have not necessarily kind of had open communication,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not like having a go. I just think it is a difficult topic for them to obviously make a decision on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 10-time DP World Tour winner said he\u2019ll be in the Open de France field next week, as well as the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at the start of next month.<\/p>\n

After that, Fitzpatrick\u2019s schedule is a bit of an unknown. <\/p>\n

\u201cKind of depends, I don\u2019t know when \u2014 if there\u2019s a decision made this week, obviously have a little bit more confirmation of what I might need to decide,\u201d he said. \u201cOutside of that, it\u2019s up in the air, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"BMW<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Prospective team members attended the de-facto training session in Ireland, which followed last week\u2019s Irish Open in nearby Doonbeg and featured a Sunday night dinner and 18 holes of golf on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Fitzpatrick\u2019s life changed in the most significant and permanent of ways last month, when he and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-850551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}