All eyes are on the DP World Tour's flagship event this week, as an eclectic field convene to contest one of golf's most prestigious prizes at Wentworth's West Course.

As no PGA Tour or LIV Golf tournaments take place in the coming days, FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy will join stars such as Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry and this year's US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick among those fighting it out for the trophy, which will be handed out on Sunday afternoon.

With rancour still seeping from statements on all sides of the battle for professional golf's future, several defectors to the LIV series will be in attendance; ensuring a potentially spiky climax at the most refined of courses, where the event has been held since 1984.

BMW PGA Championship preview

Its origins coming in the British PGA Championship, established back in the 1950s, this tournament has seen some epic golfing duels in its time as the European Tour's top event, with winners diverse as Peter Alliss, Arnold Palmer, Bernhard Langer and Seve Ballesteros.

Now in the DP World era, the BMW PGA Championship has switched from its long-held slot in May; moving to September in 2019. Still, though, the prestigious Wentworth Club plays host to an integral part of the Rolex Series, which sees standard prize money more than doubled and plenty of ranking points available.

Just days after Oliver Wilson celebrated an emotional win at the Made In Himmerland tournament in Denmark, the level of global attention steps up at least a couple of notches, as some of the game's top talents arrive in Surrey for four days of intense action.

Undoubtedly, the much-discussed presence of several LIV Golf players - including Ryder Cup stalwarts Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter, plus pantomime villain Patrick Reed - will add another layer of intrigue, particularly when the weekend pairings unfold and the glint of the winners' trophy grows nearer.

In all, 17 members of a star-stacked field have already opted to turn tail on the established order and take the huge sums on offer from the breakaway tour, and unlike in the US, they are still eligible to compete on the DP World Tour until a legal case is settled in February.

Until then - and surely beyond - the conflict continues to overshadow on-course proceedings, and Rory McIlroy's recent comments, in which he doubled down on his rejection of former colleagues and claimed it would be "hard to stomach" their attendance, have only fanned the flames.

Such soap-opera drama aside, there will be numerous major winners and past PGA victors to follow for those lucky enough to secure entry to the West Course for the Championship's finale - tickets for the weekend action sold out weeks in advance.

Tyrrell Hatton, former Masters champion Danny Willett and last year's top dog Billy Horschel all return, 12 months after the latter triumphed by holding off Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Jamie Donaldson to finish on -21 after 72 holes.

This time around, the overall prize fund stands at $8m (nearly £7m), and the winner will stride off with a £1.2 million share - plus a pleasant boost in the World Rankings. Not only that, but qualification for Europe's Ryder Cup side will also begin this week, in the fourth Rolex Series event of the season.

However, the prize that awaits one man on Sunday evening means more than all that, as a slice of golfing history is at stake, at one of the game's most revered venues.

Course guide

Wentworth's West Course, located in leafy Surrey, is a par 72; measuring 7,267 yards - but such dry details do no justice to the iconic 18 holes based on Harry Colt's original layout.

Carved out of heathland, and first opened in 1926, Wentworth's most renowned track features tight, undulating fairways; with strategically placed bunkers and thick rough being its main defences.

Water hazards play a role, too, on several holes, including the famous 18th. The final furlong of a testing course is a par five that lends itself to a dramatic conclusion, as players can just as easily be caught out by the water and make a double bogey as hole a title-winning eagle.

The venue for the Ryder Cup on one occasion, back in 1953, the West Course was controversially renovated in conjunction with Ernie Els several years ago, but has since been expensively refined.

It was the 2017 BMW PGA Championship that saw the current setup's unveiling, with the greens and bunkering all improved and benefiting from state-of-the-art construction; producing a course fit to host the game's great and good.

We say: Tommy Fleetwood to win

Since finishing fourth at the end of a dramatic Open at St Andrews, Fleetwood has laid low, but having also claimed fourth spot in his previous outing, at the Scottish Open, the Englishman was at least in fine fettle before his recent break.

Not only that, but the Ryder Cup star finished tied for 12th and 13th at the two most recent BMW PGA Championships, and has the big-time temperament to hold off a star-studded field if he can get himself into contention on Sunday.

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