It would be forgivable if the closing stages of the Race to Dubai revert to a crawl. Francesco Molinari’s epic 2018 must have ensured at least mild fatigue but if the Italian arrives this week for the European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship running on fumes, he also has cause to be walking on air. A year kickstarted by seeing off Rory McIlroy at the PGA Championship in May was enhanced further by a maiden victory in the US a matter of weeks later. “I turned to my caddie and said: ‘Frankie is just like a robot – he never seems to miss a shot, ever,’” said McIlroy of his Wentworth Sunday experience.
Those assessing trends regarded Molinari as a contender for the Open. He endorsed such tips with a two-shot success at Carnoustie. This time, Tiger Woods was among those repelled. Molinari had become Italy’s first major champion. There is a smile from the 36-year-old when asked whether he should now become a multiple major winner. “Should? No, I would never say that,” Molinari says.
“Having done it now, I know how much it takes. I think when you have won one it is harder to win another because of the expectation from everyone. Especially for someone like me from a different country, I am not just another American winning a major so there is going to be a lot of attention. It won’t be easy but the most important thing is to improve and I want to improve. After I have a rest at the end of this season I will be raring to go again. It’s going to be a great challenge to win at least another one.”
Against such a backdrop of stunning individual success it is an anomaly that a team event really catapulted Molinari towards wider prominence. That he was already the Open champion was, of course, significant but Molinari’s Ryder Cup heroics – largely in the company of Tommy Fleetwood as “Moliwood” was born – afforded him fresh status once more. Footage of crowds chanting Molinari’s name as he got on the Eurostar at Gare du Nord to head home endorsed his profile. “It’s hard to say but I think probably, from my point of view, the Ryder Cup has been even bigger than the Open,” Molinari explains. “Having achieved those things so close together in time makes it a good combination and a big combination. Things have changed a lot over the summer.
“You would never expect that in a train station. That probably shows you; that was one thing that would never happen after the Open, so the Ryder Cup is so special. You could see this year, especially, the special relationship we had within the team. The public bought into that and loved it.”
Molinari’s glory has led to necessary adjustment. Essentially a quiet, understated individual, there is a smile once more when asked whether the requests for selfies in coffee shops in his adopted city of London has proved embarrassing. “That’s why London is such a great city, there are so many things going on that people might not really focus on you.
“You see it with other guys but when it happens to you, of course, it is totally different. It has been a lot more time-consuming than I would have thought before but that is part of the job; if you want to be successful and you are ambitious, which I am, you need to deal with it.”
To the outsider, the ability to remain emotionally neutral is crucial to Molinari’s success. It almost looks un-Italian. It was not always thus, as the man himself ruefully admits. “I learned pretty early,” says Molinari. “As a young kid, I used to get pretty angry on the course and my dad didn’t like that. I would throw a club or break a club. The punishment would be weeks or months without golf, so I have to thank my dad for that. If you speak to anyone around me, they’ll tell you there is the passion – which you need – but I manage to handle it much better now.”
Molinari’s run has brought wider benefits, with the Italian Ryder Cup of 2022 – previously believed to be in jeopardy – now far more likely to happen because the host country has a player worthy of attention. Can a golfer, though, breach Italy’s football obsession? “It is changing, it takes time,” Molinari says. “It would be great not only for me to have results but for someone else to pick it up after me. When you are not a major sport, it is only results that will get people watching or following.”
It will be a shock if Molinari, from a position of more than €1m ahead, does not lift the Race to Dubai (order of merit) title next Sunday. It seems wholly appropriate that his closest challenger is one T Fleetwood. The pair will be first-round partners in Dubai on Thursday.
“Winning this would be amazing because it is something I would have struggled to see myself do,” Molinari says. “I had always dreamed of winning a major, that if things went right I could show I was good enough to win there. But that’s one week, one thing. To win the Race to Dubai would be incredible because it’s a season-long event against such a high level of talent that is on tour right now. It really would be something special for me.
“It’s fine with Tommy, we are used to competing against each other week in and week out. It has been quite funny that out of all the guys he has ended up the closest to me. It feels a bit like a fairytale ending to the season.”
A season which, if Molinari has his way, won’t prove the exception. “It’s not going to be easy,” he says. “This will be a year I will always remember but I need to focus more on the things that got me to this stage; how can I keep them going, how can I make them better. There are still things I need to work on. I would have worked on them if the results hadn’t been this way. The results don’t change the process.”
