Paul Waring climbed 32 places into fifth position on the 2025 European Ryder Cup Rankings after his first Rolex Series victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
The Englishman carded rounds of 64-61-73-66 to win by two strokes from three-time Team Europe player Tyrrell Hatton, as well as a whole host of European Ryder Cup players, and climb into the automatic qualification spots with 428.23 points.
Should Waring make Luke Donald’s 2025 European Ryder Cup team it would be a Ryder Cup debut for the two-time DP World Tour winner.
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Waring said: "To keep control of myself in the way I did, I'm really proud of myself. I'm a bit taken aback right now.
"I felt that my golf game has been in such a good place over the past year, I just haven't put it all together. What a week for it all to click together.
Waring fired a course record 61 during his second round to post the lowest 36 hole score in DP World Tour history at 19 under par.
“My playing partners were amazing. Shane (Lowry) was great, as was Niklas (Nørgaard). I'm a bit taken aback right now.
“I'm not that emotional on golf courses. I tend not to fist-pump and I tend not to get up and down, and I tend to stay quite steady. It was actually the putt on 15, the par save. It was only five feet but it was such a solid putt. It just gave me so much confidence coming in that if I just keep hitting putts like that I'll be fine.”
For Hatton, a closing 64 was enough for a solo second finish and sees the two-time Ryder Cup winner jump to the top of the European rankings where he now sits on 517.84 points.
There were also top ten finishes for 2018 Ryder Cup winner Thorbjørn Olesen and 2018 and 2023 Ryder Cup winers Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood.
As it stands, Hatton claims top spot in qualifying on 517.84 points, with Rasmus Højgaard (484.53 points), Matt Wallace (469.92 points), McIlroy (457.07 points), Waring (428.23) and Nørgaard (364.43) rounding out the automatic qualifiers.
The qualification process will end at the DP World Tour tournament which concludes on Sunday August 24, 2025.
