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The European Tour may be starting a week later than usual, but it is opening with a fanfare. Last year, the first week saw the European Tour operating across two events and two continents before the marquee players joined the Desert Swing the following week. This year, the prize fund for this event has risen from $3m to $7m, more than twice the offering at next week’s Dubai Desert Classic. Apart from Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy, Europe’s finest are here as well as the World #2 and #3 in Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson. The event was first held in 2006 and has always been held at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club which is a long, flat course. Power off the tee has not been particularly advantageous in recent years with none of the last five winners ranking inside driving distance that week. If driving has any relevance this week, it is in being accurate. The fairways are generally quite narrow and so the last three winners have ranked inside the top-10 for driving accuracy that week. It is not deemed to be a particularly important factor this week, though. Here are three factors that should have more relevance:
Angles to consider - Previous form in desert golf
The best example of this is missing this week – McIlroy has 18 top-5 finishes in his last 26 starts in the UAE (see
here) – but a look at the winners’ circle in this event also evidences this factor. More than half of its twelve stagings have been won by just three players: Tommy Fleetwood (2); Paul Casey (2); Martin Kaymer (3). And it really should have been a fourth win for Kaymer in 2015 – he held a ten shot lead with 13 holes to play! - Previous form before the event
Played in the first couple of weeks of the year, this can hardly be called ‘current form’, but there is evidence from the
Event Profile that a high finish at the end of the previous year carries over to the new year. In each of the last four years, the winner had finished inside the top-5 in their previous start, including non-Tour events such as the Hero World Challenge. Even with the more unlikely winners in the three years before that – Pablo Larrazabal, Jamie Donaldson and Robert Rock – they had all secured at least one top-10 in their previous three starts. - Greens in regulation is key this week
No matter the amount of money on offer, the world’s best players wouldn’t compete this week if the course didn’t meet the same expectations. This is a ball-strikers course. As can be seen from the
Event Profile, the leader in greens in regulation has finished 1st-1st-3rd-2nd-2nd in the last five years. If we extend that a further seven years back to 2006, the series is as follows; 3rd-1st-2nd-5th-9th-2nd-2nd.
Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players are selected.
Tyrrell Hatton The king of the Desert Swing is absent this week, but Hatton isn’t too far behind in that category. While McIlroy has 11 top-10 finishes in the United Arab Emirates in the last five years, Hatton is joint-second with Henrik Stenson with eight (see
here). His finishes in Dubai have generally been higher than at this venue, but he still has four top-15 finishes in five attempts and he was the sole leader at the start of the final round two years ago, eventually struggling in the blustery conditions. He would win twice later that season so is a better player when in contention now. Louis Oosthuizen The South African was at the top of his game at the end of 2018 with finishes of 3rd in the Nedbank Golf Challenge and 7th in the Alfred Dunhill Championship but that is overshadowed by his six-shot victory at the South African Open. In that form, he should contend on any course, but this week’s course is very well-suited to his game. He hasn’t played here since 2011 as he has cut back on his early year events and focused more on the PGA Tour. He did finish 5th and 2nd in 2009 and 2010 so he has course form as well as very positive mental carryover from the end of last year. Andrea Pavan This week’s outsider is the Italian who only 14 months ago was competing in the Second Stage of the European Tour Qualifying School. He won that event and finished 4th in the Final Stage to earn his Tour Card for next season and he made quite an impression. He won the Czech Masters in August and his game is perfect for this course – he ranked 2nd in the European Tour’s 'Strokes Gained: Approach' category for 2019 and ranks 2nd in greens in regulation to Tommy Fleetwood over the last six months (see the Tour Stats here). He also finished 6th in last event to meet one of the other angles to consider. Tips 1-2; -1.00pts 1pt e.w. Tyrell Hatton 22/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7) mc 1pt e.w Louis Oosthuizen 20/1 (Coral 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7) 4th 1pt e.w. Andrea Pavan 80/1 (Paddy Power, Coral and Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7) mc
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