Woods defends title in Dubai
TIGER Woods defends his Dubai Desert Classic title starting tomorrow (AEDT) coming off his seventh straight USPGA tournament win at the Buick Invitational in California on Sunday.
The world No.1 captured the Gulf region’s premier trophy at his third attempt last year defeating South Africa’s Ernie Els in a dramatic play-off.
And he says that after a winter break during which he and his wife Elin announced that they were expecting their first child in the summer that all was set fair for what he hoped would be a stellar year.
“It was great to win early in the year prior to Augusta (Masters),” he said after completing the pro-am tournament on Wednesday.
“It’s the ideal start so far and I feel good about where I am headed.”
Els holds the record for wins in the European PGA tournament after triumphing in 1994, 2002 and 2005 and he says that he is out to go one better than last year, having been boosted by his year-opening third place finish in Qatar last week.
The three-times Major winner is back up to fourth place in the world rankings as he battles back to his best form after two years of fitness problems brought on by a knee injury.
“The last two years, or the last year and a half, I haven’t quite been up to the standard I wanted,” he said.
“That’s partly due to the injury and so on. But I feel like I’ve kind of energised myself again.
“I feel that I’ve got clear goals again and I really want to move forward. I think I’ll become a factor again, you know in the Tiger world so to speak.”
Both Woods and Els were at pains though to stress that it would be much more than a two-horse race with nine of Europe’s victorious Ryder Cup team in action headed by England’s Paul Casey, a winner already this year at Abu Dhabi two weeks ago.
Casey is joined in a top-class field by K-Club teammates Darren Clarke, Sergio Garcia, Robert Karlsson, Paul McGinley, Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie and David Howell.
Howell is in the record books as being the youngest-ever winner of the Desert Classic since its inception in 1989, taking top honours as a 23-year-old in 1999 and he is looking forward to the challenge despite being rusty and sore after six weeks out to recover from a crippling back injury.
“I’m much better, I think a six weeks’ break did me a lot of good to be honest,” said the Englishman.
“I didn’t hit any balls until Monday and I am aching all over.
“I think that just brought it home to me what we put our bodies through week to week and we take that for granted. But all in all I am feeling pretty good.”
Also expected to be firmly in the hunt for the top prize of 400,000 dollars is South Africa’s Retief Goosen who eagled the last to win the Qatar Masters in Doha last Sunday and a strong Asian contingent led by India’s Jeev Milkha Singh and Thai veteran Thongchai Jaidee.
There will also be support for amateur Othman Al-Mulla who becomes the first player from Saudi Arabia to tee up in a major tour event.
Agence France-Presse