Bob MacIntyre and Kurt Kitayama stand 11th and 12th respectively in the Race to Dubai, just 91 points separating them, with the prize awarded following the final event in the Middle East this week.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN DUBAI: You have to go back to the great Seve Ballesteros in 1991 and the sixth of his victories in the season-long race, to find the last time a Spaniard won.

After 47 tournaments and hundreds of thousands of shots, one fearless stroke on the 18th hole decided everything between Jon Rahm and Tommy Fleetwood.

DEREK LAWRENSON 2019 REVIEW: As a farewell column for 2019, let's reflect on another momentous season and hand out some accolades to the best and worst moments in 2019.

It is a decade since a spectacular fall from grace exploded into life with a sensational sequence of events, starting with a car crash in a quiet, gated community in Florida during Thanksgiving.

As another week on the sporting landscape races by, Sportsmail's Riath Al-Samarrai examines who has left themselves hot, and who has been left firmly out in the cold.

OLIVER HOLT - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Five years ago, when I was already plenty old enough to know better, I went to Orlando to chronicle the end of Tiger Woods' career.

Tiger Woods will have his first crack at securing a record-setting 83rd PGA Tour victory in two weeks in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the former world number one confirmed this week.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN ABU DHABI: It is still more than two months until the clocks go forward, and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have yet to hit a shot.

In the confines of the players' lounge and in off the record conversations on the practice ground, a litany of torment came to characterize a brutal first day at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic.

It's Hot or Not time again as Sportsmail's Riath Al-Samarrai reveals what's been making him feel warm and what's been leaving him cold this week.

Eddie Pepperell, the Englishman who walked out of a tournament mid-round in November because he had run out of golf balls, has a simple, avowed goal for the new season.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN DUBAI: Remember all those US Opens where they set the course up so hard it became a lottery, and they ended up with a funky winner?

Graeme McDowell succeeding in proving to his children he is not just a 'YouTube golfer', but their Easter holiday plans may have to change following his battling victory in the Saudi International.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN LOS ANGELES: Here in Tinseltown, therefore, there are some tantalising possibilities in play this week as Woods plays the host trying to gatecrash his own party.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN LOS ANGELES: Imagine having a local rapper chanting rhymes to a sizeable crowd as you prepare to play to the par three 16th at the Genesis Invitational pro-am. 

DEREK LAWRENSON IN LOS ANGELES: On a day when Tiger showed once more that no venue causes him fits quite like the wiles and mysteries of Riviera, McIlroy answered the riddles with a fine 67

On Friday afternoon, a rumour spread like wildfire at the Genesis Invitational that Phil Mickelson was about to be announced as the first face of the proposed Premier Golf League.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: The walk from the 18th to the Riviera clubhouse involves negotiating a formidable incline for a man in good health, let alone one just back from heart surgery.

Rory McIlroy has delivered a potentially fatal blow to the proposed Premier Golf League by ruling himself out of joining a breakaway circuit.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: At what point do we officially start to worry about the form of Justin Rose? In a year he has dropped from world No 1 to 13th, his worst position since 2017.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN ORLANDO: Rather like Liverpool at Watford last week, Tommy Fleetwood did not do things by halves when it came to the end of his run of 47 tournaments without a missed cut.

Tiger Woods' Masters preparation has suffered a setback as he is unable to return to action at next week's Players Championship in Florida due to a back issue, ESPN reported on Friday.

DEREK LAWRENSON IN ORLANDO: As a media scrum assembled around Rory McIlroy on Friday night, his playing partner Justin Rose made a dejected exit. These are tough times for him.

The PGA Tour will continue for the next four weeks without spectators, beginning at the Players Championship today, and begging the question: will the Masters follow suit next month?

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: No wonder there is a doom-laden feeling that the Ryder Cup should be postponed for 12 months and we write off a lost year for sport.

The US Open is set to become the third American major to be postponed and will now be played in early September, according to a report in the New York Post.

Tommy Fleetwood hopes the Ryder Cup can act as an 'amazing torch' after the coronavirus pandemic. The flagship contest between Europe and the United States remains in doubt.

MY SPORTING HERO BY CALUM CROWE: Growing up in Ayrshire, I was raised on a diet of Junior football and links golf. Both were in my blood from an early age and have stuck with me.

EXC INTERVIEW BY DEREK LAWRENSON: If you had to rank Sir Nick Faldo's six major championship wins, his successful defence of his Masters title 30 years ago might well finish bottom.

Few Europeans were even allowed a glimpse of Augusta National in 1980. That all changed when Seve Ballesteros had the looks, the charisma, the game and then the priceless green jacket.

When a 19-year-old Tiger Woods stood over his first-ever putt at the Masters on his debut in 1995, it is fair to say the American prodigy was in for a rude awakening.

Augusta announced last month that the 2020 tournament, scheduled for April 9-12, had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tournament is now set to be held November 12-15. 

The rigorous testing procedures put forward by the PGA Tour will involve players, caddies and officials being sent testing kits - already on mass order - to their homes.

Tiger Woods' arrogance on the course may have made him come across as a 'p****', but it is also what sets him apart as a true champion, according to his former coach.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: There is still a window before the Ryder Cup organisers make a final decision on whether it will go ahead as planned. But it's fair to say the mood has changed.

World No 1 Rory McIlroy insists he will never take winning for granted as he waits to make a return to the game after the coronavirus lockdown.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: It was the hardest piece that I've ever had to write - and the lively aftermath was far, far worse. Seve Ballesteros tore into me in front of my peers.

In this week's EastEnders, Louise plans to throw Bex a surprise party in the Vic. Meanwhile in Coronation Street, Chesney orders Bernie to pack her bags after a scam victim shows up.

They really push Mikey North, who plays Gary, to the limits in his character transformations, but he continues to impress, even though Gary finds someone new to attack on a daily basis

President Donald Trump arrives in Japan for talks with Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and other leaders after demanding from aboard Air Force One that India pull back tariffs.

Bernie Ecclestone, 88, also said he thought Putin should be running Europe and that the invasion of Crimea was just to 'bring Russia back together.'

Russian journalists noted that the blonde ice cream seller at the MAKS-2019 international air show on Wednesday was the same woman who sold Putin his cone two years ago at the same event.

'I love it when you call me señorita,' Trump appears to sing, one auto-tuned note at a time, with each word drawn from a different speech. 'I wish I could pretend I didn't need ya.'

Donald Trump's absence from an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland in WWII is stoking fears that the security alliance between Washington and Warsaw is weaker than the two governments have let on.

Vladmir Putin (pictured) said he offered to 'balance everything out' by offering the Kremlin's weapons to Trump at the G20 summit in Japan in June.

The poll on Sunday suggests a tactical voting strategy pushed by opponents may have worked, in order to punish the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin's (pictured) ruling United Russia party.

Oleg Smolenkov, the Kremlin aide named in Russia as the CIA's asset at the heart of Putin's regime tracks closely to a source described in the Steele dossier, claims Ilya Shumanov.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a report Israel most likely spied on President Trump using devices that mimic cell towers a 'blatant lie.'

Russian president Vladimir Putin's goddaughter Ksenia Sobchak, 37, from Saint Petersburg, has wed her TV producer fiance theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov, 44.