Rory McIlroy's Order of Merit lead threatened by Danny Willett

The legacy of his mid-summer ankle injury is still a factor, but only as Rory McIlroy cannot yet seem to put four tournaments together in a row.

So, while his main pursuers, Danny Willett and Shane Lowry, who play in the BMW Masters at Lake Malaren in Shanghai, string on one week after another in chasing him down in the Order of Merit, the 26-year-old Northern Irishman has an off-week before getting back down to business in Dubai next week for the season's finale.

As things stand going into the penultimate tournament of the PGA European Tour season, McIlroy has a 74,213-point lead over Willett, while Lowry is 727,579 points adrift in third place. It is all rather tight, at least making a real race of it.

McIlroy, on medical advice, has had to restrict the number of tournaments he has played since returning to competition following his ankle ligament injury sustained playing football ahead of the British Open in July.

Given special dispensation by European Tour boss Keith Pelley to play 12 rather than the mandatory 13 tournaments to qualify for tour membership, McIlroy will close out his season at next week's DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

“I’ll just try and get ready for Dubai now and make sure I’m healthy and get ready to go there . . . just go there and try and get the win. Hopefully that will be enough,” said McIlroy, whose performance in China was affected by a bout of food poisoning.

Apart from an upset stomach which led to losing 10lbs in weight, McIlroy again had issues with his putting.

“I felt like I played good enough to be in contention and win. I just haven’t holed enough putts . . . it’s getting better. I feel like every tournament I play, I’m getting a little bit better and hopefully I can continue in that trend and go into Dubai and play well again,” he said.

Back-to-back titles

McIlroy, the world number three, is chasing back-to-back Order of Merit titles, but Willett, Lowry and fourth-placed

Louis Oosthuizen

all have the opportunity to make the most of his absence from the field in Shanghai. And, for Willett especially, there is the strong possibility of overtaking McIlroy to assume the top spot going into Dubai.

If Lowry is to chase down McIlroy, he will need to find a hotter putter. Things got so bad in China at the HSBC that the Offaly man actually gave away his Odyssey putter to a young fan after his opening round, not that things improved much with the replacement blades.

Although third on the Order of Merit, Lowry’s putting stats have him a lowly 168th in the “putts per round” category on the European Tour, averaging 30.2; he is 120th in the “putts per greens-in-regulation” with 1.785, figures which only serve to highlight how good the rest of Lowry’s game is at present.

Lowry is one of only two Irishmen in the limited field in the BMW Masters, along with Paul McGinley who is playing on a sponsor’s invitation.

It is expected this will be the last staging of the tournament, with the prospect that the so-called Final Series will next year be reduced from four tournaments to three.

An announcement and clarification are expected next week when the tour reaches its final stop in Dubai.

The final 60 players who advance to Dubai will be decided after the BMW Masters, with Australian Marcus Fraser currently on the bubble in 60th place, only marginally ahead of Sweden's Kristoffer Broberg in the Order of Merit.

Graeme McDowell, 68th in the latest R2D standings, has accepted his lot and won’t be in the field for Dubai.

Instead, the Ulster man is finishing his season on the PGA Tour and is in the field for this week’s Mayakoba Classic in Mexico (part of the 2016 season on the PGA Tour) and next week’s McGladrey Classic in South Carolina.