The first-time winners on the DP World Tour in the 2024 season

Every year, the first-time winners on the DP World Tour provide some of the best and most emotional storylines of the season.

From breakout stars to experienced campaigners ending a long wait, everybody’s route to the winner’s circle is different.

Here, we take a look at the 15 players who have etched their name on a DP World Tour trophy for the first time on the 2024 Race to Dubai.

Joaquin Niemann – ISPS HANDA Australian Open

We did not have to wait long for a first-time winner, with Niemann taking the title in Sydney in just the second week of the season. A seven-time winner on his home tour in Chile (six of them coming as an amateur) and with two PGA TOUR wins to his name, Niemann won in just his second event on the DP World Tour outside of the Majors, Rolex Series and World Golf Championships.

His first had come a week earlier at the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship and a top-five there gave him some momentum for the second of back-to-back events Down Under. He began the final day four shots adrift of overnight co-leader Rikuya Hoshino but posted a five-under-par 66 to set the clubhouse target at 14 under, a total later matched by the Japanese. Both players made birdie on the first play-off hole at the 18th, with Hoshino getting up and down from a greenside bunker before Niemann saw an eagle putt from five feet slide past. Despite Hoshino again doing well to make a birdie after going bunker-bunker for the second time in succession, Niemann sealed victory after another fine approach shot, holing from seven feet for eagle.

“I always practise those three, four, five-feet ones and know that one of those will be to win a tournament,” said Niemann, who became just the second Chilean to win on Tour after Felipe Aguilar.

“It’s amazing.”

Rikuya Hoshino – Commercial Bank Qatar Masters

Hoshino did not have to wait too long to get over his play-off heartbreak, claiming victory less than three months after his defeat to Niemann. That loss was his second consecutive runner-up finish to start his first full season on Tour, having finished 81st on the previous year’s Race to Dubai Rankings after finishing second on the Japan Golf Tour’s money list in 2022. Rounds of 69-68-69 had put him in a share of the lead heading into the final round in Doha and a closing 68 saw him finish on 14 under, one ahead of France’s Ugo Coussaud, with fast-finishing Scott Jamieson third on 12 under.

“I’m honoured to win at this wonderful tournament,” he said.

“I was second at the last two Australian tournaments so I’m so happy to finally win. Of course I was nervous but I just tried to keep enjoying it.”

Hoshino would finish 16th on the Race to Dubai and earn dual membership with the PGA TOUR.

Darius van Driel – Magical Kenya Open

Hoshino’s victory kicked off a run of six first-time winners in eight events and Van Driel was next just the following week. His golfing journey has been a remarkable one, with him giving up the game for a number of years after breaking his hand in a banana boat accident, but he decided to turn professional after finishing second at the 2015 Alps Tour Q-School. He won the Order of Merit in his maiden season and then graduated from the European Challenge Tour in 2019, the same season he lost in the final of the Belgian Knockout to Guido Migliozzi on the DP World Tour. Another runner-up finish came at the 2021 Porsche European Open and while he lost his card in 2023, he regained it at the Qualifying School.

An opening 66 set the tone in Nairobi and Van Driel made just four bogeys all week in a wire-to-wire win, finishing two ahead of England’s Joe Dean and Spaniard Nacho Elvira at 14 under.

“It means a lot… it’s a dream come true,” said an emotional Van Driel.

“As a kid you dream on the putting green…’this is for a win on the Challenge Tour’ or ‘this is for a win on the DP World Tour’. Now it’s finally there, it’s what you always dream of. I was calm, but once the last put went in I felt the emotions. I never thought it would hit that hard but it did.”