Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)

After his ice-cold, methodical performance during Sunday’s final round at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – a round wherein he masterfully played the role of the battle-worn professional wholly accustomed to the exclusive surrounds of the winner’s circle – 46 year old Lee Westwood, thanks to a display of relentless precision and clutch putting, walked away with the first trophy of this year’s ‘Desert Swing’ and, perhaps more importantly, solid confirmation that, whilst the sunset may indeed be growing closer, it sure as hell isn’t time to ride off into it just yet.

However, as is the way, professional golf never stops to smell the roses for all that long and, within hours of Westwood’s final putt falling on 18, the show had probably already rolled out of Abu Dhabi and begun the 106km journey up the coast in preparation for this week’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic in the familiar surrounds of the Emirates Golf Club. 

Field Report

In terms of field strength, this week’s will be every bit as strong as it was in Abu Dhabi, as the large majority of last week’s field – save for Brooks Koepka, who’s taking a week off before the Saudi International, and Patrick Cantlay, who’s just not playing anywhere this week – are following the Tour in making the same hour-long journey up the road to Dubai with ambitions of claiming a huge early season win.

Whilst our top three players in the World Rankings will, once again, be elsewhere this week – Rory, Rahm & Rose will all be playing in this week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines – there will be some additions to the field that weren’t in Abu Dhabi to, as it transpired, be bested by Lee Westwood, most notably: Henrik Stenson, who spent last week in Singapore finishing a cool fourteen shots back of eventual winner, Matt Kuchar; Graeme McDowell, listed in the field under the ‘Legends Category’ alongside the likes of Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Pádraig Harrington, will play east of the Atlantic for the first time since last October when he finished in a tie for 15th at the Italian Open; last year’s ‘Order of Merit’ winner on the Asian Tour, Jazz Janewattananond, and Japanese golfer, Shugo Imahira, who’s riding a super hot run of two wins and three runner-ups since September, will both join the field with an eye to improving their respecitve 38th and 36th places in the World Rankings; and, finally, Swedish golfer, Marcus Kinhult, who won last year’s Betfred British Masters and narrowly missed out on capturing the Nedbank after being bested by Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff, will be looking to kick off 2020 with a bright start alongside last year’s ‘Rookie of the Year’, Robert MacIntyre, who returns after being forced to pull out of last week’s tournament due to a hand injury not being 100% healed.

The Yardage Book

In a new feature to these previews, I’ll be adding what I’m calling, “The Yardage Book”. This will be a simple, short list detailing any relevant information from past editions of an upcoming tournament; any challenges I think the field might possibly face with regards to predicted weather, for example; a look at the actual course itself and what type of golfer might go well around it; and, basically, whatever else I find relevant to have in my head before visiting the Oracles with a view to coming up with who I think might have a good week. So, as for this week?

(i) Whilst not as long as the course they faced last week in Abu Dhabi (which was 7,583 yards), the 7,353 yards which makes up the Majlis Course is still plenty long enough to reward those who can sufficiently pound it off the tee.

(ii) The course layout is split between 10 par 4’s, 4 par 3’s and 4 par 5’s. Of those fourteen holes that are either a par 4 or par 5, eight of them are particularly suited to those proficient at making the ball move right to left off the tee – and, again, when you look at some of the past champions in Sergio, Rory and Li, that logic more than stacks up

(iii) Though the narrow, tree-lined fairways with stretches of desert, wide expanses of rough and water hazards just waiting to swallow up errant tee shots initially led me to believe that accuracy off the tee was the key to nabbing a win in Dubai, having done some digging into the numbers, that doesn’t appear to be the case. In the last five years, of the five golfers who’ve actually managed to win around ‘The Majlis’ (Bryson DeChambeau; Haotong Li, Sergio Garcia, Danny Willett & Rory McIlroy) only one of them finished their respective weeks ranked in the top 10 of ‘Driving Accuracy’ – Sergio Garcia back in 2017 with an 8th place finish on 69.64%.

In every other year going back to 2015, the highest place a winner has managed to finish is 38th, and that was Bryson DeChambeau last year with a figure of 57.14%; whilst the lowest ranking belongs to Rory McIlroy who, despite winning back in 2015 on -22, finished in an astonishing 95th place after hitting just 44.64% of the fairways that week. So what gives? Well, for every one of those champions – apart from Bryson DeChambeau finishing 39th in 2019 – they all finished inside the top 20 in ‘Driving Distance’ in the weeks they won; with the most stark comparison being McIlroy, who contrasted that 95th placed ranking in ‘Driving Accuracy’, with a 1st place finish in ‘Driving Distance’ on 317.88 yards. In other words, when in Dubai, tee it up and let if fly.

(iv) What might potentially put a kibosh on the above strategy of pulling driver at every available opportunity and launching yourself at your ball, however, is the rough this week. In the last few weeks both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have experienced significant rainfall, which, when combined with otherwise sunny skies and temperatures in the low to mid 20’s, leads to potentially extra thick rough to snaffle those wayward 300+ yard bombs – of course, it does depend on how gnarly the tournament director decides to actually leave it.

(v) Whilst last week in Abu Dhabi saw, for the most part, rather benign conditions in terms of wind, the forecast, at the moment, is spelling out a very different story for Dubai. Where the field last week saw general wind speeds between 4-9 km/h winds, this week could see the guys in Dubai dealing with speeds ranging from 15-35km/h over the four days, with gusts up to 43 km/h on Sunday. 

The Oracles’ Fourball

As I have for the last two weeks, I’ve made the arduous trek through gorse and bog, fended off foxes and bartered with badgers to reach the cave where my Oracles reside, all in the name of drinking long and deep from their ‘goblet of truth’ so that I may steal a glance through time and space to come up with the names of those golfers who might contend this week.

Unlike last week, however, where  I ended up plucking a meaty six names from the mists, I’ve decided that this week – and possibly going forward – to limit myself to just four. And this week that quartet is made up of:

Sergio Garcia: After his much publicised “conscious uncoupling” from Callaway took up a ridiculously large amount of airtime last week, Sergio went on to deliver a solid performance in Abu Dhabi where, over the first three days, the hallmarks of his stellar career in great driving and crisp iron play saw him vault right into contention heading into Sunday. However, when his putter cooled somewhat on closing day (as is something of another hallmark) the former Masters Champion ended up having to settle for a T-8 finish, 6 shots back of fellow quadragenarian, Lee Westwood. Heading to Dubai, however, where he finished T-3 last year, first in 2017 and has a host of top 20 finishes, his combination of accuracy and length off the tee, combined with an ability to hit that ‘power draw’ of his and a much improved putting stroke could see him do well.

Tommy Fleetwood: For the second week in a row, as I navigated the fever dreams induced by the Oracles’ broth, the long-haired figure of Tommy Fleetwood emerged quietly from the mists to speak to me. And what he said, on this our second such meeting, was, “Given I finished T-2 last week with a putter that was stone cold for the first three days, hit 81.95% of the greens and can hit a nice little draw too, there’s a chance I could do well this week in Dubai. Also, the last two years there, I’ve finished T-6 and T-16, so that might be something to consider as well. Anyway, I’m off.” And just like that, he retreated back into the mists … and he was gone.

Thomas Pieters: After clocking up a T-30 finish in Abu Dhabi – where he shot under par all four days for a final total of -9 and nabbed ‘Shot of the Day’ honours with a peach of a driver off the deck – to go along with the T-13 finish he managed at the Mauritius Open just before Christmas, Thomas Pieters, without question, has gotten his 2020 season off to a solid start. So, when I see him heading to Dubai, a place where he’s only missed the cut once in the five times he’s played this event – and notched up two solid finishes of T-23 and T-29 in the last three years – after his performance with the driver last week (4th in ‘Strokes Gained: Off The Tee’; 4th in ‘Distance’; and 37th in ‘Accuracy’), his proficiency in hitting a draw and the fact that he’ll be gunning to get back on another Ryder Cup team after his standout debut performance at Hazeltine, the Belgian could definitely be one to watch this week.

Shane Lowry: If the chance of making a return to the Ryder Cup arena might be something of an extra source of inspiration for Thomas Pieters to up his performance not only this week, but for this season as a whole, then for the current Open Champion, who we know for a fact is desparate to finally make his debut in that same arena, every time he sets foot on a course over the next nine months is going to be a big deal.

Now, unforunately for Shane, things didn’t go to plan last week with him missing the cut in Abu Dhabi, but when you actually look at his two rounds, they tell a different story apart from just, “He missed the cut”. He drove it decently, hitting a lot of fairways; his iron play was decent – not outstanding by any means – but decent; and his usually hot wedge game was somewhat tepid. So what was the problem? Unlike that Saturday at Portrush, Shane just could not make a putt for love nor money. And, yet, despite risking frostbite every time he grabbed his putter, heading to the 17th tee, Shane was actually -2 and a shot inside the cut line. But then he dropped a shot at 17 … and then he made a mess of 18, meaning, out of nowhere, he was suddenly not going to be around for the weekend.

But after unexpectedly getting Saturday and Sunday off, I’m sure Shane probably headed up to Dubai early, spent a lot of time on the putting green and will come out this week with a point to prove – and with his ability to play in the wind, that point may well end up being punctuated by lifting that trophy on Sunday.

Again, I’ll be covering the action out in Dubai once everything gets underway Thursday, so if you’re looking for updates, be sure to check out my Twitter.