Congratulations to Rickie Fowler on winning the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championships last week.
We’ve practiced a bit together back home in Florida and obviously played plenty of times. You don’t need me to tell you what an incredibly talented young player he is and he’s one of a bunch of young guys who are great role models for our game, conducting themselves with style and professionalism both on and off the golf course. Rickie also happens to be a supporter of our annual Els for Autism Pro Am, the eighth edition of which we’re looking forward to hosting this coming March. Another supporter of our Pro Am, Jason Dufner, won on the PGA TOUR in California at the weekend so congrats to him, too.
I came out of the blocks a bit slow in Abu Dhabi and really never got it going, so my attention quickly turned to the second leg of the Desert Swing, this week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters. The courses here in the Middle East are always in absolutely pristine condition and are some of the best playing conditions we see all year. Everything about these events is truly world class…and that includes the quality of the field. That was certainly the case last week, with four of the world’s top six players teeing it up, and there’s a pretty strong line-up in Doha this week.
As I was saying in last week’s report, my record in general in this part of the world is strong. It is also true to say that Qatar and Dubai have been happy hunting grounds for South African golfers generally, with a total of eight wins here from our players over the years. One of them, Branden Grace, is defending his title here. A good result this week will see Branden move inside the world’s top-10 for the first time, which I know has been a dream of his ever since he was a member of the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation.
This is an event I’ve also won before – back in 2005 – and actually someone reminded me last week that just one more victory gives me the most wins in the Middle East since the European Tour started coming here more than 25 years ago. That’s my goal, obviously!
I’ll need to drive the ball better than I did in Abu Dhabi, though. I missed too many fairways there and with the rough being as heavy as it was, it was tough getting any momentum going. On the plus side, my new cross-handed putting grip becomes more comfortable with every round I play, so we just need to keep working on that and focus on making good, positive strokes.
Anyway this golf course is in great shape and, as is often the case here in Doha, it looks like we’re due to get some windy conditions out there. That doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it interesting and you have to adapt and really work your golf ball. The course was certainly a tough test when we played Qatar’s traditional pre-tournament Masters Challenge Match in which myself, Sergio Garcia and Louis Oosthuizen each teamed up with four young amateurs for a five-hole Texas Scramble. My team was pretty good especially as some of them had just started playing the game, so I tried to pass on some tips. They all hit some nice shots, though, so I used their golf balls quite a few times. We had some fun and it’s a nice, relaxed way to ease yourself into the tournament week.
That’s about it for now. Follow me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy.
