BlogAbu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

A very important next three weeks for the European Tour it’s the desert swing, three weeks in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.  First this week is the Abu Dhabi Championship which is being held in one of the fastest growing cities in the world.  It also has a great field and is being played on a good course.  The importance of this event is to get the European Tour off to a great start and the next couple of weeks will have marquee names along with the best players in the world.

Unfortunely both Justin Rose (injury) and Ernie Els (time at home) couldn’t make it, still this week’s event will have the best field in golf.

One person playing this week with an interesting story is China’s Wen Yi Huang.  The 33 year-old who took up the game 12 years ago and was a day labourer in China just a decade ago is now a regular on the European Tour after finishing T30th at the Hong Kong Open.  He got his big break when he finished T7th at the BMW International in April and he needs another good finish if he wants to continue his dream of playing on the European Tour.

Playing this week which could create some “buzz” is Simon Dyson.  In December the European Tour found that broke a rule by tapping down a spike mark during the BMW Masters.  Now the Tour went as far as saying that it wasn’t a “premeditated act of cheating” but did slap him with a suspension and $45,000 in fines for his act.

Also the European Tour and the Irish Open has announced that Fota Island will be the site if this year’s Irish Open.  The last time the title was played at Fota Island was in 2002 when Soren Hansen won and the reason for it going back is simply financial.  The resort has been purchased by Chinese investors The Kang Group and will become the official sponsor of the event along with hosting it.  Now I don’t want to sound like it’s not a good course, it is.  Unfortunely the Ireland we all know is courses along the sea like Ballybunion, Portrush, Portmarnock and European Club and would like for the event to one day go to some of these clubs.

Course Information – Abu Dhabi Golf Club

Part of a 27-hole club that was built and opened in 1998.  The course was designed by Peter Harradine. The course was carved straight out of the desert and requires about a half a million gallons of water a day to keep in shape.  The holes weaves through undulating terrain that features pockets of palms, ornamental trees and shrubs, as well as seven spectacular saltwater lakes. The course provides a tough but fair challenge, with lush fairways, water coming in play on 11 holes, 90 strategically placed bunkers and big greens which are Bermuda Tifdwarf.  Fairways are paspalum while the rough is Rye.

Since the course was first used 8 years ago, several changes are made each year with new tees adding more distance, bunkers have been changed and greens changed to add more challenging pin positions.  For this year some changes was the additional of bunkers at the 11th making the fairway harder to hit and the green more testing to hit.  The tee was also changed at 18, moving it to the left and raised by 15 feet.  This will bring the fairway bunkers more into play and make the hole more challenging.

Golf’s DL injury report

Interesting to note that not only did Louis Oostuizen win the first event of a new year for the fourth year in a row (also won 2011 & ’12 Africa Open and 2013 & ’14 Volvo Golf Champions but he did it off the disabled list.  As we mentioned last week Oosthuizen has suffered pain in his back since the U.S. Open but it looks like the injections he had in his joints of the vertebra has done it’s job.  He told media that he isn’t perfect yet, as he said he got a “few little niggles” through his back and is hoping that it gets better.  He will take the next three weeks off in South Africa resting and working on his game, then return to the Northern Trust in Los Angeles.

Jeev Milkha Singh says that his Index finger injury, which has plagued him for a year now is finally pain-free.  He did it with a reduce schedule in 2013 and will be looking to get back to the level of play he experienced when he won the Scottish Open in 2012 when he got as low as 84th in the world rankings.  Things have been tough, in his last 19 events he only has made four cuts with a best finish of T36th in last months Thailand Open.  With his poor play he has plummeted to 277 in the World Rankings and is hoping to get off to a great start this week.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the ABU Dhabi Golf Championship:

Key stat for the winner:

In looking at the stats of the winners that last four years, what sticks out as very important is hitting lot’s of greens.  Kaymer was T1st in that stat in 2011 and every winner in last 5 years except for Kaymer in 2010 finished in the top-ten in that category.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Martin Kaymer  mastered the par 4s, he was 10 under in 2010 and 14 under in 2011.  2009 champion Paul Casey was the worst at 4 under while Jamie Donaldson was 5 under last year.
• Length is always important as those in contention are high up in driving distance.  In looking at someone that has done well in that stat, Rory McIlroy got better each year in distance and finish as he was T5th in 2009, 3rd in 2010 and 2nd in 2011 and ’12.  Only problem, he missed the cut last year, but I don’t see that happening again this year.
• In the 8 years the tournament has been played only once has the champion shot over par.  That was Martin Kaymer in the final round of 2008 when he shot 74, but the wind was gusting up to 45 mph that day.
• It’s very unique to think that in the eight year history of this event Paul Casey has won it twice and Martin Kaymer won it three times, horses for courses.