Returning home: The four first-time UK winners this season

By Mathieu Wood

Dan Bradbury’s dream beakthrough professional win at the Joburg Open in South Africa at the outset of the season set the stall for what has been a successful campaign for UK-based golfers on the DP World Tour.

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Since then, European Challenge Tour graduates Matt Baldwin and Tom McKibbin have both tasted success on the DP World Tour for the first time, while Dale Whitnell was the most recent UK player player to enter the winner’s circle in emotional fashion earlier this month in Sweden.

All four will tee it up this week in the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo at the Belfry with the ambition of celebrating their second Tour win.

Only Germany has enjoyed such comparable success this season, with its four different DP World Tour title holders.

Coupled with victories for Rory McIlroy in Dubai and Daniel Gavins in Ras al Khaimah, the latter of whom is also in action this week on the iconic Brabazon Course, UK golfers seem to be thriving, potentially inspired by each others' success.

By comparison, only Ewen Ferguson - who won his first DP World Tour title at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters and second at the ISPS HANDA World Invitational – along with Matt Fitzpatrick, with his maiden Major Championship triumph at the U.S. Open, had lifted trophies for UK golf last year.

But it didn’t take long this season for the British Isles to be celebrating a new champion as Bradbury completed a memorable wire-to-wire victory at Houghton Golf Club on the opening weekend in November.

Four months after turning professional, the 23-year-old made the most of a sponsor’s invite in just his third DP World Tour start to achieve the unthinkable.

Reflecting on his campaign so far, Bradbury told the DP World Tour: “I couldn’t have got off to a hotter start, winning the first event of the year.

“Then it was just a matter of getting used to everything and it is still like that. It’s my first year out here so I am still getting used to all the travel.

“I had done it in college but not to this extent. Being able to pick a schedule as someone who is in the winner’s category is very nice.”

A hole-in-one on his Rolex Series debut in Abu Dhabi soon followed in January, before he played alongside McIlroy in the final round of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic a week later as he continued to create lifelong memories.

And for Bradbury, the upcoming four-week stretch featuring three events on UK soil, was a period in his schedule he has been looking forward to – even more so in the knowledge he will be making his Major Championship debut at the 151st Open Championship next month.

“The Belfry is less than two hours from home, so this is the closest event I have got all year," the Yorkshireman said.

“I am really looking forward to it. I have got a lot of family and friends coming so that will be nice.

“Scottish Open is a great event with a great field and then I am really looking forward to The Open. It’s been hard though because the year has gone so fast, so I am trying to really enjoy it as it comes.”

It was back in South Africa where Baldwin earned his maiden DP World Tour title as he celebrated his 200th Tour event in style with a dominant seven-shot victory at the SDC Championship.

Baldwin's 11-year journey to the winner's circle has contained plenty of ups and downs, with illness forcing him to cut his campaign short in 2015.

He was back on Tour for the 2018 season after coming through the Qualifying School and would have been back in 2021 via the Challenge Tour but missed out after the categories were frozen due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

After a 19th-placed finish on last season’s Road to Mallorca Rankings, Baldwin sits 40th on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex and will have his sights set on qualifying for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

"My career has been a bit of a roller-coaster," reflected Baldwin. "It has certainly been exciting.

"I turned pro in 2008, played a little on the Alps Tour, Challenge Tour and then had my breakthrough season in 2011 so I graduated that year.

"My rookie campaign in 2012 was a great year, playing two Majors - U.S. Open and the Open. From there it was pretty consistent through to the end of 2014, playing at the DP World Tour Championship.

"I had a steady start in 2015 but then had my injury and coming back from that period has been tough for me.

"Now, I would like to think I am peaking for a second life."

In a nod to the strength in depth on the Challenge Tour, it wasn’t long before another of its graduates was hoisting aloft silverware as McKibbin held off a crowded leaderboard at the Porsche European Open for his first DP World Tour title.

Victory has propelled the 20-year-old to the cusp of a spot in the world’s top 150 and resulted in a wave of praise from a number of key figures in the game, including McIlroy who like McKibbin also grew up in Holywood, Northern Ireland.

"I have had a lot of support and nice messages so it has been good," he reflected. "I couldn't ask for anything better.

"I know a lot of people have had high expectations of me but I try not to listen to those really and play my own game. I think I have done that and managed it pretty well."

At the end of the scale in their professional journeys, Whitnell ended a 14-year wait for a victory on his 106th DP World Tour start.

Two weeks on, and England’s highest-ranked amateur player is eager to kick on from the magnitude of realising a lifelong ambition.

“It was a massive life-changing win for me,” he said.

“There has been a lot of hard work that has gone into this win. It hasn’t just happened overnight. It has been a long process.

"The two-year exemption on Tour is huge. It’s given me a massive boost coming here a couple of weeks after winning in Sweden.

“For myself, the British Masters is a big event and one that I would obviously love to win and I am hoping for a good week.”

Whitnell represented Great Britain and Ireland at the Walker Cup in 2009 at Merion and has revealed he received touching messages from two teammates from that team.

I have had a lot of great messages from people that I know,” he said.

“It’s funny, Sam Hutsby who also played in the Walker Cup in 2009 also won on the same day on the Challenge Tour and Tommy Fleetwood also messaged me after I finished and just before he went out for his final round to say well done.

“He had a great chance going into the RBC, unfortunately for him it didn’t pan out but those sort of messages from people who I have grown up mean a lot.”

With the opportunity to play in front of home crowds, Whitnell is relishing the chance to become the fourth Englishman to win this historic title since it was restored to the DP World Tour schedule in 2015.

“It’s a huge honour to play as a winner on the DP World Tour, especially at the British Masters,” he said.

“With Sir Nick Faldo hosting it is a huge occasion and hopefully we will have a few English guys, including myself, at the top of the leaderboard come the end of the week.”

Will we see another winner from the British Isles this week?