BlogAbu Dhabi 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 good 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 a couple of guys that have played here in the past are not in the field, notably Paul Casey who has won this twice.  Last year’s runner-up Phil Mickelson, who has played twice isn’t in the field along with Tiger Woods, who won’t be playing any of the desert swing events.  Some other key European players not here is Joost Luiten, who has finished sixth the last two years running, Thongchai Jaidee who has finished in the top-ten the last two years and Sergio Garcia.

Things on the European Tour has been a bit quiet with the retirement of European Tour Chief Executive George O’Grady. There is a task force looking for his replacement and there is nothing but rumors.  People think it will be Keith Waters, the European Tour’s chief operating officer while others say it will be Guy Kinnings, who presently is the global head of golf for IMG.  No matter who, they will have to solve some big problems, getting more homegrown players not to defect to the PGA Tour and getting sponsorship that will pay more for events.

A couple of items of interest, the R&A is getting close to awarding the English television rights and many are speculating that after airing the British Open for over 60 years BBC could be out.  It’s not really a matter of money, it’s more a matter of does the R&A take the money of Sky Sports, who would do a much better job in the telecast.  The big problem with Sky since it’s a pay cable service and BBC is free over the airwaves, BBC has a 5 to 1 ratio of viewers so taking it away would drastically lower the viewership in England.  Tough call, some say the R&A is looking into pay TV, that would spilt the viewership somewhere in the middle.  I think that the R&A may give the production to Sky but have it viewed on both Sky and the BBC.  No matter what look for a change.  Lastly, the European Tour has to pick a new Ryder Cup captain for 2016, many thought that Miguel Angel Jimenez would be the choice but he still wants to play and isn’t ready to captain the team.  So by default it may go to Darren Clarke, look for a decision in the next couple of weeks.

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.

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

Key stat for the winner:

In looking at the stats of the winners that last five years, what sticks out is how important hitting lot’s of greens are.  Kaymer was T1st in that stat in 2011 and every winner in last 6 years except for Kaymer in 2010 and Larrazabal last year finished in the top-ten in that category.  Pablo Larrazabal was the worst finishing T28th in that stat last year.

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 and was ten under in 2010.  Last year’s champion Pablo Larrazabal again screwed up a great stat only playing the par 4s in even par in 2014.  So what was Larrazabal good out?  He has played the par 3 the best of any champion, he was 7 under on them last year and was T4th in number of putts with 107.
• 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 in 2013, but bounced back to finish T2nd last year leading the driving distance category with an average drive of 308.1 yards.
• In the 9 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 nine year history of this event Paul Casey has won it twice and Martin Kaymer won it three times, horses for courses.