European Tour Power Rankings: Omega Dubai Desert Classic
By Matt Coles
The European Tour’s desert swing continues this week with the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, held just a couple of hours up the road from Sunday’s finale in Abu Dhabi.
The Emirates Golf Club in Dubai hosts the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, one that first featured on the European Tour back in 1989, with a prize fund of just €350,000. Three decades later and that purse is now worth $3.25 million.
When this event was founded, it was the first on the European Tour to be staged in the Arabian Peninsula, and the 1995 edition of the tournament is notable for being the first live event broadcast on the Golf Channel.
The event will be held on the Majlis course at Emirates Golf Club, which is known as one of the finest golfing venues in the Middle East. The par-72 course stretches to over 7,300 yards and has some spectacular holes along the way.
The par-3 7th hole will see golfers having to carry their approach shots the length of a saltwater lake, while the closing hole of the Majlis will once again see the pros having to carry a lake with their second, or possibly third, shots into the closing par-5.
The timing of this event sees it follow the first Rolex Series tournament of the season, with players now facing the task of trying to catch Lee Westwood at the top of the Rave to Dubai leaderboard, with the Englishman having more than double the number of points compared to his nearest challenger.
This is one of the places that Westwood is yet to win in his career, having finished runner-up in 1999, 2010 and 2012. Only three Englishmen taking victory in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic since its inception, including the very first title, which went to Mark James. David Howell and Danny Willett have also tasted victory in Dubai.
Spaniards were the most successful over the last decade, with Miguel Angel Jimenez, Alvaro Quiros, Rafa Cabrera Bello, and Sergio Garcia all having won this event since 2010.
Only four men have won this event multiple times, with Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Stephen Gallacher succeeding at Emirates GC twice each. Ernie Els holds the record for most titles at this tournament, winning it three times, in 1994, 2002 and 2005.
However, Gallacher is the only one of those to secure the Omega Dubai Desert Classic title in consecutive years, taking the title in both 2013 and 2014.
Bryson DeChambeau is the defending champion, and he will be featuring in his second European Tour event in as many weeks come Thursday, but where does he come in our Power Rankings ahead of the tournament?