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 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.

The field is good and has three of golf’s big four, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler.  Jason Day isn’t playing, but along with Henrik Stenson, Martin Kaymer and Branden Grace this is a really good field.

One person not in the field is 2013 Jamie Donaldson.  Details are sketchy as he twitted a picture of his left hand with a major cut on his left hand that was stitched up saying that he lost a fight with a chainsaw.  The figure looks terrible, but it didn’t look like it cut much, if it was a chainsaw he could of easily lost the figure and the hand. It’s too bad for Donaldson who won last month at the Thailand Golf Championship after a two year winless drought.  Despite not playing this week, Donaldson’s manager John Fay told Press Association Sport that since Donaldson didn’t suffer any tendon damage, that he could play in Singapore next week and will play in two weeks in Dubai.

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 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 since 2009 except for Kaymer in 2010 and Pablo Larrazabal last year finished in the top-12 in that category.
• Also important to look for length, since this is a desert course and will play firm, players that hit it far will have an advantage along with guys that play well in the desert.

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

• Interesting to see how well all of the champions since 2009 has done on the par 3s.  Last year’s champion Pablo Larrazabal was 7 under on them, all of the winners since 2009 have played them under par.
• 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..
• 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.  Unfortunately Casey hasn’t played in this event since 2014.
• Guess what the weather is going to be?  Easy, it’s going to be perfect with tempertures in the mid to high 70s and no rain.  Wind will be low, the worst day is Friday with winds of 11 mph.
• One last thing, it’s easy to say that Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth will win.  But look at the last four winners, nobody would of predicted either last year’s winner Gary Stall, 2014 winner Pablo Larrazabal or 2012 winner Robert Rock.  Look at guys like Justin Walters, who finished T-3rd last week in the Joburg Open and T-4th in the South African Open as a good longshot.