8 minute read
Dallah Drama
THE ONLY GUARANTEE WHEN THE 33RD SLYNC.IO DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC TAKES STARTERS ORDERS? YET MORE UNSCRIPTED THEATRE BY KENT GRAY
Momentum. It’s one of golf’s most sought-after, and utterly fickle, commodities. Offering mostly fleeting hope, it’s diffi cult to obtain and harder still to cling on to.
Some, heading into the 33rd Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic, have it in ample supply. Take Thomas Pieters following his cool march to victory in Abu Dhabi while chaos ensued all around him on the Yas Links leaderboard.
The Belgian, who will turn 30 on the Thursday of Dubai’s upgraded Rolex Series event, amassed a mere fi ve bogeys all week on a layout bearing its teeth and thus set course for Emirates Golf Club with authentic early season impetus in the form of a career-best sixth DP World Tour win.
The problem with success is that it often runs smack bang into sober reality the very next week; the last back-to-back winner on the European circuit was Tyrrell Hatton (Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and Italian Open) in 2017. In the case of the now $8 million Desert Classic, Pieters will also confront history which records that no winner in Abu Dhabi has ever gone on to double-down in Dubai. That’s 16 editions, and counting. There’s also the not insignifi cant matter of Pieters’ ho-hum record on the Majlis, a share of 23rd in 2017 his best result in seven starts.
So, in full knowledge that history is there to be rewritten, let’s imagine for a moment that Pieters isn’t the player holding the fabled Dallah trophy aloft come Jan. 30. Who else brings genuine early season momentum to the ‘Major of the Middle East’?
Using the fi nal Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship leaderboard as fresh evidence, there are a few usual suspects.
Rafa Cabrera Bello was joint runner-up with Shubhankar Sharma and, as 2012 Dubai Desert Classic champion, importantly knows how to get over the line at Emirates G.C. Mind you, like most of Pieter’s challengers at Yas Links, the Spaniard’s Sunday was a case of momentum ebbing and fl owing and ebbing away again right at the wrong time. For Cabrera Bello, it was a pair of bogeys on 15 and 16, although his birdie on 18 was a positive and hugely profi table send-off to Dubai.
Viktor Hovland produced one of the shots of the final round in Abu Dhabi for an eagle on the 7th but also blotted his card with an earlier triple bogey and a late double of amateurish wedge proportions to fi nish T4. Tyrrell Hatton produced one of the best fi nal rounds with a 67 and has a pair of third places in Dubai in 2017 and 2018. His Sunday best wasn’t quite as impressive as the bogey-free 65 from 2007 Dubai champion Henrik Stenson, a score matched by Adri
Arnaus. After rounds of 71-76 and 72 the 27-year-old Spaniard looked set to positively skip up the road to Dubai only to double bogey his 72nd hole. It was a costly blunder for Arnaus – a brilliant 63 or perhaps even 62 for a top-10 finish turned into a tie for 20th - and a reminder momentum is a fickle temptress.
Ian Poulter, Shane Lowry and the bearded Adam Scott were others to experience the giveth and taketh of Yas with the Aussie, set for his first Desert Classic appearance in 20 years, again hobbled by an uncooperative putter. The former Masters champion would be a billionaire by now if only he could roll the rock with a smidgeon more consistency.
For the ultimate yo-yo performance at Yas though, look no further than Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman admitted he’d “never been so glad to get off a golf course” after barely sneaking into the weekend with a 36th hole birdie in Friday’s gale.
Then he somehow transformed opening rounds of 72-75 into weekend scores of 67-69, which on the face of it, would suggest the four-time major champ has knocked off the winter rust and is trending very nicely for Dubai thank you very much.
McIlroy certainly become a compelling watch when he holed out for an eagle two on the 9th at Yas and proceeded to
birdie three of his next four holes to roar into surprise contention. But just when an epic comeback looked possible – he started Sunday nine strokes adrift of the 54-hole leader Scott Jamieson - McIlroy tugged his drive left on 14 en-route to three bogeys in his final five holes and a tie for 12th. “Honestly, just happy enough I got to play an extra two days,” McIlroy offered as a report card from Abu Dhabi. “I had to make a birdie at the last on Friday night to be here and almost made most of the weekend. Played well yesterday. Played really well today through 13 and then a couple of loose shots coming in that cost me but it was good to see where the game’s at. “… I thought the driver was good, irons were pretty good for the most part. Hopefully get to Dubai with some favourable conditions next week. Don’t feel like I’ve hit a full iron shot the last couple of days, all knock-down. Maybe some kinder weather would be nice going into next week.” At least two-time Desert Classic champ McIlroy, back at Emirates G.C. for the first time since finishing runner-up to Haotong Li in 2018, is comfortable with the Majlis layout. He certainly appears to have more of that intangible early 2022 impetus than Collin Morikawa who finished five over par in a share of 62nd at Yas, notably two shots worse than Trump Dubai amateur Josh Hill. After finishing T68 on debut last year, Morikawa doesn’t exactly have fond memories of the Majlis either. Then again, there’s a reason he’s a drawcard, a body of 2021 work that included the Claret Jug, a WGC title, the DP World Tour topsy turvy Championship title and Harry Vardon trophy as the first ever After struggling to American to become European No.1. Momentum is tempomake the cut at Yas rary, class permanent and all that. Links, McIlroy made Only once in the history of the Desert Classic, meanwhile, a dramatic charge for has a player captured the Dallah trophy back-to-back – Scot the Falcon trophy Stephen Gallacher in 2013-14. Paul Casey, who opted for the Asian Tour’s SMBC Singapore Open over Abu Dhabi for his Dubai title-defence tune-up, will draw confidence from that. A bit like McIlroy, the 44-year-old Englishman was set to touch down from Singapore on an upward, albeit slightly turbulent, trajectory. Casey was notably outscored, 68 to 76, by 14-year-old Thai amateur playing partner Ratchanon Chantananuwat in the opening round at Sentosa Golf Club but made the cut on the number with a gritty 68 and closed out his week with an equal best of Sunday 66 for a creditable share of 16th. The caveat of a closing round which started from the 10th tee? Lost momentum on his homeward nine when he cancelled out a lovely eagle on the 4th (impressively his third successive three on the par-5 4th) with a double bogey on his penultimate hole, the 8th. Momentum. Golf’s most fleeting commodity and an utterly fickle way to predict what will happen from one hole to the next, much less from one early season Desert Swing event to the next. Enjoy the unpredictable drama. Rory, anyone?
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