European Tour Power Rankings: Commercial Bank Qatar Masters
By Matt Coles
The first member of our top ten on the Power Rankings for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters is defending champion Justin Harding.
He won the event by two shots from a huge gaggle of players that finished in T2. Mike Lorenzo-Vera, George Coetzee, Nacho Elvira, Oliver Wilson, Erik van Rooyen, Jorge Campillo, Anton Karlsson, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Jinho Choi all finished last year’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in that tie for 2nd spot at Doha Golf Club.
Since that victory though, plus a T10 finish at the AT&T Byron Nelson on the PGA TOUR, the South African has fallen off his top form. He sat inside the top 45 in the Official World Golf Rankings in June 2019 but now sits only just inside the top 100.
He is yet to finish inside the top 25 on the European Tour since the turn of the year, after coming home inside the top ten at the season-opening Alfred Dunhill Championship on home soil in the first week of December.
Fellow South African Branden Grace went back-to-back in Qatar in 2015 and 2016. Could Harding follow that same mold and take victory again this week at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters? It is a different venue, but Harding will want to defend his title to the best of his abilities.