Dubai Desert Classic

Best Bets

0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Bernd Wiesberger (40/1 Coral)

0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Andy Sullivan (40/1 Coral)

The European Tour returns to Dubai this week in the final leg of the Middle East swing. Rory McIlroy goes off again this week and he will be fancying his chances as defending champion. The bookies like Rory’s chances too and he has been priced very short for this event, and there doesn’t look to me much value going for a McIlroy win.

The event is hosted again by Emirates Golf Club which measures out at just over 7,300 yards. Historically this course is generous off the tee. It is essential to preserve your round on the front 9 which only offers up one par five. Most of the tough par fours feature on the front 9 also, so look for golfers to try and survive to the turn and take advantage of the three par fives on the back 9. The current forecast would indicate that wind will feature again heavily this week, and that is something we have factored in our selections.

Previous winners have demonstrated that being long off the tee helps massively in this event. With the generous fairways driving accuracy is not at a premium this week. We have gone for two golfers who should suit ideally this week.

0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Bernd Wiesberger (40/1 Coral)

One man we fancy to go well this week is Bernd Wiesberger. He looked like he might be returning to some of his best form last week. Wiesberger finished in the top 15 in Qatar and mentioned that he feels like he is nearly there and going in the right direction. He has two top ten finishes in this event in his last two starts here so clearly loves the track. He also proved last week that he can handle the wind. He averages over 290 yards off the tee and the Austrian has the power to be able to cope with this course.

0.75 Pts EW (1-5) Andy Sullivan (40/1 Coral)

We went with Sullivan a couple of weeks ago in Abu Dhabi, and he held the 36 hole lead but went on to self-destruct over the weekend. This was somewhat surprising for the usually consistent Sullivan. He was fighting a pull off the tee all week, but after taking a week off at home, he will likely have ironed out this problem. His week off should serve him well as players were fighting the elements last week in Qatar and will undoubtedly be fatigued.

He has stated his pleasure in playing in this part of the world many times before and his last outing in Dubai led to a second place finish behind Rory McIlroy in 2015’s closing event. He finished fourth in this event last year showing he has the tools to go well here and he will be looking to put right what happened in Abu Dhabi. A final factor that we’ve considered here is hisability to play in the wind. He won the Portugal Masters in 2015 in windy conditions. On the final day the wind picked up massively and it didn’t look to intimidate Sullivan on his way to a comfortable victory that week.