Rahm's victory in the DP World Tour Championship on Sunday followed his Irish Open triumph earlier in the season, but he arrived in Dubai knowing he could not finish top of the money list regardless of the result.
The 23-year-old played the minimum five regular European Tour events required to be a member, but that number could increase in the 2017-18 season as he also looks to secure a Ryder Cup debut.
"Hopefully I can keep playing like this and hopefully I can win again next year, maybe coming out to this tournament with a chance of actually winning the Race to Dubai," said Rahm, who finished third behind Justin Rose and winner Tommy Fleetwood.
"It didn't feel good to mathematically have no chance to win it. Hopefully I can play better and actually have a chance."
Asked if he will play more events, the Arizona State graduate added: "I'll try.
"It's just hard to be honest, having to combine both tours and the start of the year on the PGA Tour on the west coast being so close to home for me, being defending champion at Torrey Pines. It's just going to be hard to go away from that and come here.
"We still haven't set the schedule so that's something I'm going to look at. I'm going to try to come to Europe. I love coming to Europe, clearly. I have success in Europe and I want to keep coming, have lots of fun and hopefully keep playing good golf."
Rahm's meteoric rise means he is now the top ranked European player in the world, having risen from 285th after finishing third on his first professional start in June 2016 to his current position of fourth.
"I'm a really ambitious person," the former world number one amateur said. "I know it's going to be hard to top my first year because it's a really, really good first year. In fact, it's a really good year in general, period.
"I'm going to take a couple of days off. I'm going to work with my mental coach, reassess the year, what I've done really good, what I've done really bad and see what I've done and set my goals for next year - hopefully more wins, getting higher up than number four."
Related links
