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The 30th Dubai Desert Classic is the second event in a row in the United Arab Emirates and the second event to feature the United States’ finest. Last week, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson secured top-20 finishes without ever threatening to win the event. This week it is the turn of Bryson DeChambeau, another player in the top-5 in the World Rankings, but for whom appearance money seems to be less of a factor as he plots his route towards the top of those rankings. Twelve months ago, he was ranked 95th in the world. DeChambeau will be competing on the Karl Litten-designed Majlis course at Emirates Golf Club. It features generous fairways with little rough so the penalty for errant drives is principally the water that features on ten of the holes. That said, driving accuracy has never been a key factor here – Sergio Garcia ranked 4th in that category when winning two years ago, but no other winner in the last 20 years has ranked in the top-15 in driving accuracy that week. The greens are generally rather fast so their difficulty can be affected by the strength of the wind. The forecast is for very calm days during the tournament so expected low scoring this week. With all previous stagings of this event held at the same venue, there are plenty of pointers to players that are likely to perform well this week. Here are two to take into account. Angles to consider 1. World Ranking
This is an event often won by Major champions or champions-to-be: 14 of the 29 Dubai Desert Classics have been won by players who have now won a Major championship and in both 2016 (Danny Willett) and 2017 (Sergio Garcia), the winner of this event would win the Masters Tournament three months later.
Beyond the Major champion angle, here are the World Rankings of the last 15 winners at the start of the event: 60th – 15th – 19th – 1st – 67th – 105th – 121st - 36th – 60th – 39th – 1st – 3rd – 1st – 3rd. It has been some time since this event had a stronger field than its corresponding event on the PGA Tour, but even last year’s surprise winner, Hao-Tong Li, had the 17th highest World Ranking in the field. This is clearly a course on which the best players fare well and those players who were not 60th or lower in the World Ranking (Gallacher, twice, and Cabrera-Bello) have extremely strong course form at the Majlis course. 2. Course Form
Last year’s winner, Li, is the exception to this as his best prior finish here had been 39th in his only prior attempt. Going back year-by-year this decade, Garcia had four top-20 finishes in his last five visits; Willett had top-15 finishes in the previous two years; McIlroy had top-10 finishes in each of his previous five visits including a win; Gallacher won back-to-back in 2012-13 and had finished 10th in 2010 and 2nd in 2011; 125/1 shot Cabrera-Bello had finished in the top-20 the year before winning in 2011; Quiros had finished 13th and 6th in the previous years; and Jimenez had four top-10 finishes in the five years before winning in 2010. At least one previous top-20 finish appears to be essential here, apart from last year, though Li was followed by McIlroy and Hatton in 2nd and 3rd place and they both have very strong records here. This week’s course form can be viewed here.
Selections Rafa Cabrera-Bello
The Spaniard’s breathrough win came in this event in 2012 and his affection for this place is evidenced by having a home in Dubai. As this link shows, he has finished in the top-25 in 10 of his last 11 starts in the United Arab Emirates. He competed mainly on the PGA Tour last year, securing a number of top-10 finishes, including the PGA Championship and finishes 3rd, 17th and 14th in the WGC strokeplay events last year, so a Major win may not be too unrealistic an expectation. Joost Luiten
At 75th in the World Rankings, he may not appear to fit the first angle but that is mainly due to missing 20 weeks on Tour last season following a wrist injury. He won the 2018 Oman Open prior to that layoff for his sixth European Tour victory. Contention rust would be an issue after such a lengthy delay but he still secured top-30 finishes in all four starts after returning to the Tour and he opened his 2019 campaign with a 3rd place finish last week to once again show his liking for desert golf. He already has a top-10 finish here and is proven winner at this level. Byeong Hun An
An missed the cut last week, but was only the second time in 12 attempts that he has not finished in the top-15 when playing in the United Arab Emirates (see here). His record is much stronger on this course than at Abu Dhabi, so last week’s poor performance from the World #54 is not a concern. Tips 0-3; -6.00pts 1pt e.w. Rafa Cabrera 23/1 (Betfair Sportsbook 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6) mc 1pt e.w. Joost Luiten 35/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) mc 1pt e.w. Byeon Hun An 45/1 (Bet365 ¼ 1-2-3-4-5) 12th
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