Jon Rahm poses with the Race to Dubai and DP World Tour Championship, Dubai trophies. Picture: Getty Images

Jon Rahm might not be a major winner just yet but he took another giant step along that road yesterday when he birdied the 18th to clinch the DP World Tour Championship, the Race to Dubai and a $5 million payday.

It was a typically tempestuous performance from the big Basque (25), who looked to be cruising to a famous double when he holed 142-feet of putts and made five birdies in his first seven holes to lead Frenchman Michael Lorenzo Vera by four strokes, Tommy Fleetwood by eight and Rory McIlroy by nine.

"He looks like a hammer and he was hitting me with a hammer on my head in the beginning with his putter," said the colourful Lorenzo-Vera, who had to settle for third overall as Rahm recovered from a mid-round stumble and a scorching Fleetwood finish to claim a lucrative double.

With McIlroy a non-factor as he limped to a 73 to finish seven shots adrift in fourth, the season-ending finale resembled a victory procession for the two-time Dubai Duty Free Irish Open champion.

But he inadvertently added some drama to proceedings by making sloppy bogeys at the eighth and ninth before then playing the first six holes of the back nine in level par.

As joint overnight leader Lorenzo-Vera closed to within one stroke behind playing the 18th (which he would three putt for par) and Fleetwood drew level after making five birdies in his last six holes en route to a final round 65, Rahm admitted he looked to Jack Nicklaus for inspiration down the stretch.

After three-putting the 15th, he remembered how Golden Bear had gathered himself for the last three holes of his Open win at Muirfield in 1966 and finished par-par-birdie, holing a four-footer for victory after finding greenside sand at the last.

"He said he was on the 16th hole as well and told himself: If you finish 3, 4, 4, which there's birdie, par, par, you win the tournament," Rahm said.,

"I told myself on 16 before I hit the tee shot, 'If you finish 4, 3, 3, you win the golf tournament, no matter what anybody else does.' That's kind of what I said to myself, too, and that's what I did. I played three really solid holes with a birdie on 18."

On his rollercoaster day, he added: "I feel like I've had two different days completely. Those first seven holes, I felt like I couldn't miss a shot. I felt really, really confident. Everything was rolling.

"My putting was unbelievable. Then just one errant tee shot and a three-putt kind of took everything in the wrong direction. I kept myself in there with a birdie on 10 and a birdie 14, but I still made some mistakes.

"It would have been a very different day if I don't three-putt nine and 15. But it happened. And it made me show some determination and grit and heart just to win."

He won $3 million for winning the tournament and another $2 million from the $5 million Bonus Pool by becoming only the second Spaniard to win the Race to Dubai since Ballesteros won his sixth European crown in 1991.

As for McIlroy, he was not too crestfallen after his 73.

"You know, I'll look back at 2019 very fondly," McIlroy said, recalling his four wins and 19 top-10 finishes from 25 events.

European Tour CEO Keith Pelley with Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year, Robert MacIntyre

"It's been a learning year, as well. I learned some things that I want to take forward into next year, as well, but first and foremost, I'm looking forward to a couple of months off and reflect on everything and get myself ready for next year."

Open champion Shane Lowry tied for 11th after a 70, picking up $886,355 (€804,000) yesterday — $86,355 for his finish plus another $600,000 from the Bonus Pool for claiming fourth in the season-long race.

"I obviously got off to a pretty bad start on Thursday, but some weeks you just have it and some weeks you don't and you have to play with what you have," said Lowry, whose Race to Dubai hopes faded with that opening 73.

"It was one of those weeks where I didn't really have it. I had to work really hard for those two 70's over the weekend.

"But overall I am happy enough with the week. Obviously, it would have been really nice to be up there contending to win the Race to Dubai, but it is what it is now. I am done, and I am happy enough."

Rahm now tops the Ryder Cup European Points List from Fleetwood, McIlroy and Victor Perez with Danny Willett, Tyrrell Hatton, Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Matthias Schwab filling the other places from the World Points List.

Lowry is 25th in the World List where newly crowned Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Robert MacIntyre is 14th,.

The Scottish left-hander (23) tied for 14th on 11-under, claiming 11th in the Race to Dubai in his first season on the main tour to edge out American Kurt Kitayama, Italian Guido Migliozzi and Spaniard Adri Arnaus for the award.

Robert MacIntyre and Waterford caddie Greg Milne

While he didn't manage to win, he had seven-top 10s, including sixth place in The Open and runner-up finishes in the Made in Denmark and the British Masters, winning over €2 million with Waterford caddie Greg Milne a big part of his story.

His next goal is to secure his Masters debut by making the world's top 50, but while he's contemplating buying a house, he has no plans to leave home just yet.

"I don't known, I've got plenty of years ahead of me before I have to live on my own," he said. "I love my Mum doing my washing."

MacIntyre hails from the remote ferryport of Oban on Scotland's west coast where shinty, not golf, is the sport of choice.

And he explained that it was a bus trip with his shinty pals that gave him the perspective to push on earlier this year when the game was becoming a chore.

"There's only one week. That was the week off between Morocco and British Masters. We pulled out of the China event on the Friday prior to it. We were in Morocco, missed the cut. I wasn't enjoying golf. Everyone knows I wasn't enjoying golf and everyone on my team -- I didn't even want to be playing golf, if I'm honest with you, that week.

"So took the week off. Went and played some shinty, and then that made me realise what life was about. It was an away game on the bus with the boys enjoying ourselves and made me realise that the job I'm doing isn't a job. You're doing it because you enjoy it, and that's the mind-set I've had for the last 17 events and has made me realise, don't find it a chore. Go and enjoy it every week, every day, and that's what I've done. Here we are."