European Tour arrives in Abu Dhabi
BY Bruce Young | European PGA Tour | 2010 Abu Dhabi Golf Championship | Preview | 20 Jan 2010
The European Tour has arrived in the Middle East for three consecutive events, the first of which is this week’s Abu Dhabi Championship at the Peter Harradine designed Abu Dhabi Golf Club.
Following this week’s event the Tour will move north to Qatar and then back down the Gulf to Dubai.
The tournament is being played for the 5th occasion with Paul Casey winning on two occasions, Martin Kaymer once and Chris DiMarco the inaugural winner in 2006.
This year’s field is arguably the best ever with five players from the world top ten teeing it up on Thursday. The leading two players on the 2009 Race to Dubai list, Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy, head the field although Geoff Ogilvy could also lay claim to favouritism given his great start to the season in Hawaii two weeks ago.
Paul Casey, too, served notice that he was not too far from where he needs to be in order to win his third Abu Dhabi Championship with a 10th place finish at the SBS event on Kapalua and with such a great liking for the golf course then he is expected to do well.
Westwood finished runner up to Martin Kaymer two years ago and although he will be playing his first event since finishing third in the Chevron Challenge six weeks ago he is expected to be a contender once again.
Ogilvy played well when last in the region by finishing 4th at the Dubai Championship and should so well while McIlroy took nearly all before him last year and his ongoing progress in 2010 will be watched with interest.
Henrik Stenson has not won this event but has gone close on two occasions and although it has been two months since he finished runner up in his last event at the Nedbank Challenge he should continue his good record.
The Australasian challenge has been strengthened by the addition of Richard Green, Marcus Fraser, Brett Rumford and Michael Campbell to those who have played in the opening two events of the year in South Africa.
Those players include Danny Lee, Mark Brown and Rick Kulacz.
