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

It’s not often you hear someone say, “Oh my God – that may be the worst shot I’ve ever hit in my life” in the middle of a playoff and still emerge victorious, yet, on Sunday at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, Lucas Herbert – courtesy of one of the most clutch ‘up & downs’ you’ll see all year – did exactly that to pip Christiaan Bezuidenhout into claiming his first European Tour win and the second title of this year’s ‘Desert Swing’.

However, with the hard, fast greens and thick, gnarly rough of the Majlis Course now firmly consigned to the rear-view mirror – and with Lucas Herbert already busy drawing up blueprints to construct a mantlepiece sturdy enough to hold his newly acquired behemoth of a trophy – the European Tour swaps the skyline of Dubai for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as it heads west to the King Abdullah Economic City and the Royal Greens Golf & Country Club to round out the Desert Swing for another year with the second edition of the Saudi International.

Field Report

As was well documented towards the tail-end of last year, Phil Mickelson choosing to join his fellow Major-winning Americans Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed out east, instead of taking up his usual spot in the Waste Management Phoenix Open is probably the biggest addition to this week’s field because … well, it’s Phil Mickelson.

However, whilst Phil and the other Americans will, understandably, be the main draws this week, there are some other notable names to look out for once play gets underway Thursday. Abraham Ancer, one of the standout rookies for the International Team at the recent Presidents Cup, will be in Saudi Arabia looking to go one better than the second place finish he managed at his last outing in the American Express. Fresh off his tied 11th finish in Dubai, Shane Lowry joins the field with eyes on continuing to build some early season momentum and work his way further up the Ryder Cup Rankings. And a resurgent Martin Kaymer will be looking to cap off what’s already been a profitable sojourn into the desert with another strong finish to go along with the T-8 & T-16 finishes he’s managed to accrue at the Abu Dhabi HSBC & Omega Dubai Desert Classic respectively.

Who won’t be competing this week, though, are three names that have played a huge part in this year’s ‘Desert Swing’ in Louis Oosthuizen, Tommy Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau. Having been on the road for three straight weeks since the South African Open, Oosthuizen – having amassed an impressive 2nd, 5th & T-23 in that spell – is taking some much needed time off, as is Fleetwood who, himself having gone back-to-back with the first two legs of the ‘Desert Swing’ – wherein he, too, racked up a runner-up finish, as well as a T-11 in Dubai – is putting the clubs away until the WGC-Mexico Championship later in February. Ever the workhorse, however, DeChambeau is heading back to the States to try and stitch the promising glimmers of his ‘new game’ we saw over the last fortnight into four full rounds at the Waste Management.

The Yardage Book

(i) The field asked for a tougher test in Dubai and the ‘powers that be’ duly obliged in providing one of the toughest course setups we’ll see all year, as penalising rough, narrowed fairways and firm, fast greens saw the Majlis Course playing closer to like a U.S. Open-style setup, as opposed to the ‘birdie hunting ground’ we’ve become accustomed to seeing.

That, however, will not be the case this week at the Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, as – if last year’s inaugural event was anything to go by – I expect the course to be challenging, sure, but ultimately set up for low scores, with generous fairways and more-than-playable rough.

(ii) For the first two legs of this year’s ‘Desert Swing’ we’ve seen fairly long courses in the Abu Dhabi Golf Club (7,583 yards) and the Majlis Course (7,353 yards). The Royal Greens, however, is only a par 70 course that stretches to just 7,010 yards (excluding any possible new tees) with a layout consisting of 12 par 4’s, 4 par 3’s and just 2 par 5’s. So if you want to build a score this week, you’re going to have to play the par 4’s well because there isn’t the buffer of knowing you’ve got three or four par 5’s to pad your scorecard with. Still, if you can bomb it off the tee, you’re going to do well here.

(iii) Having gone through flyovers of every hole at the Royal Greens, I can now see why Dustin Johnson emerged victorious last year as, when you combine the fact that many of the par 4’s would have left him nothing more than a wedge for his second shots given his length off the tee, of the 14 holes where you need to find a fairway off the tee (i.e. excluding the par 3’s) 7 of them set up particularly lovely for someone who likes to fade the ball – and of the other 7? Well, you could really fade it or draw off it off the tee – user’s choice. So the Royal Greens? Something of a ‘Fader’s Paradise’.

(iv) The Royal Greens, however, is not completely defenceless. Given its location on the coast of the Red Sea, the golf course is quite exposed to offshore winds. And, having taken a quick look at the weather for the week, whilst it’s currently looking like the field will face roughly the same wind direction every day (NW/WNW), they could also be confronted with general wind speeds of between 10-20mp/h (16-32km/h), with Friday possibly seeing the most benign conditions with speeds of between 8-15mp/h (12-24km/h). So, like Dubai, those best able to handle the wind if it gets up – and their emotions, Sergio – should give themselves a good chance of being up near the top of the leaderboard come Sunday. 

The Oracles’ Fourball

Martin Kaymer: As I mentioned in my ‘Field Report’ earlier, Martin joins the field this year at the Royal Greens after clocking up finishes of T-8 & T-16 in the last fortnight in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The most impressive of those finishes, however, has to be his most recent week’s work in the Desert Classic. Finishing 23rd in ‘Strokes Gained: Off The Tee’ with an average driving distance of 311.75 yards; coupled with a bronze medal in ‘Strokes Gained: Approach’, a silver in ‘GIR’ thanks to hitting 70.83% of the greens and being one of only four players to shoot in the 60’s on Sunday (Matthieu Pavon, Christiaan Bezuidenhout & Lucas Herbert were the other three), Kaymer’s performance in Dubai was the epitome of ‘professional’.

So when I see him playing like this and then heading to Saudi Arabia to face a course that isn’t overly long, has generous fairways and that should suit his eye lines down to the ground – what with him preferring a left-to-right ball shape – I think he could be a real shout to have his name be the second one carved into that trophy come Sunday if he can just improve his putting from last week, as he finished an eye-watering 94th out of 121 in ‘Strokes Gained’ with the putter.

Thomas Pieters: When Thomas wound up leading the Desert Classic by one after shooting a -5 (67) on Thursday, I was thinking the Oracles’ might just be after finally helping me divine my first winner. However, come Sunday, Pieters was out on the course well before the leaders in Ashun Wu and Victor Perez, and ended the week in a tie for 37th on +2 after posting a disappointing +5 final round – meaning the Oracles’ “winner bonus” of a pair of swans and three stout, seafaring men, obviously, would have to wait for another week at least.

However, having dove into the numbers from the Belgian’s trip to Dubai, though his score & finishing place doesn’t reflect it, Thomas actually had a good week, finishing 28th in ‘Strokes Gained: Driving’; 4th in ‘Driving Distance’ with a beefy 322.13 yards; 4th in ‘Strokes Gained: Approach’ and 3rd in ‘GIR’ with a figure of 68.08%. So what was the problem? Like Kaymer, it was a poor week on the greens for Pieters, except he did even worse than Martin, finishing 107th out of 121 in ‘Strokes Gained: Putting’. With him heading back to Saudi Arabia, however – a place where he shot the lowest opening round of anyone in the field last year with a -7 (63) enroute to, ultimately, finishing in a tie for 22nd – any improvement on the greens this week could see Thomas do well.

Tom Lewis: If one or two more putts had dropped for Tom Lewis over his back 9 on Sunday – including a longshot of an eagle effort on 18 – then the Englishman could very easily have been joining Bezuidenhout and Herbert in that playoff. However, in clocking up the finish that he did in Dubai (T-3 with a total of -7) and with results going his way later on in the evening at the Farmers, Tom now finds himself at number 50 in the World Rankings, having taken the place of one Jordan Spieth.

Now, as we all know, the top 50 players in the world get into all the biggest tournaments (the WGC’s, for example) so when I see that – coupled with the fact his stats from last week in Dubai are incredibly solid in relation to ‘GIR’ &, in particular, his putter – I imagine Tom will be heading to Saudi Arabia determined to consolidate his newfound ranking and make sure those invitations come in through the letterbox in order to give himself the opportunity to earn some serious cash. And when you take into account that he finished solo third in Saudi Arabia last year thanks to shooting 66-62-65 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you’d have to think there’s no better course he could be playing this week to try and do just that.

Patrick Reed: When this tournament had its grand opening last year, as I mentioned above, the then reigning Masters Champion, Patrick Reed, was one of the “marquee names” in the field. Given he went on to not have the best of weeks, however – finishing 56th on +1 – I must say I was a little surprised when I saw him emerge from the mists to round out this week’s fourball. Yet when I looked back in detail at the year Reed had in 2019, I quickly realised that it was actually a really good year for him (excluding the obvious, of course). I mean, his highlights on the PGA Tour included winning the Northern Trust and notching up 5 Top 10’s enroute to finishing 9th in the FedEx Cup rankings, which, I think we can all agree, is solid. But it’s his form since Atlanta that really catches the eye. In the 11 events that he’s played since the Tour Championship (and this excludes the Presidents Cup) Reed has only missed one cut and racked up the following finishes: T-2; 3rd; T-4; T-6; T-8; T-10; T-15; T-17; T-28 and T-36. Now, of course, we must take into consideration that of those 11 events, 6 of them had no cut, but, still, you can’t argue with those finishes Reed has managed to amass.

So when you throw in all of the above with the fact his stats at last year’s event were solid (20th in ‘GIR’; 40th in ‘Driving Accuracy; 18th in ‘Driving Distance’) and they were trending in that same direction at Torrey Pines (wherein he finished in a tie for 6th) I wouldn’t be surprised to see Patrick Reed add the only thing that’s missing from those eleven starts – a win at his twelfth.