Defending champion Alvaro Quiros is hoping to seal a unique hat-trick this week as The European Tour’s 2012 Middle Eastern journey culminates with the 23rd edition of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic.
The charismatic Spaniard began his Dubai love affair 12 months ago with a quite thrilling final round performance over Emirates Golf Club’s the Majlis Course to win the 2011 Omega Dubai Desert Classic, before he finished the campaign with victory at the season-ending Dubai World Championship presented by DP World.
One of the game’s true powerhouses, Quiros returns to Dubai in search of a third consecutive victory in the city which has played such a huge role in The European Tour’s expansion into a truly global enterprise that will stage a minimum of 46 tournaments in 25 countries across the world in 2012.
An truly inspirational destination, Dubai will once again host a truly inspirational first class field of golfers with the World Numbers Two, Three and Four – Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer – leading the charge to dethrone Quiros at the Emirates.
If Quiros can repeat his final round heroics of 12 months ago he will be a difficult man to dethrone.usurp. The Spaniard’s roller coaster final closing round included a triple bogey seven and a hole- in-one as he thrilled the packed galleries and millions of television viewers across the globe to emerge triumphant over the likes ofa chasing began McIlroy, Westwood and Tiger Woods.
“I hope that performance can be an inspiration for this week,” said Quiros. “I am not feeling great about my game at the moment, but I have won the last two tournaments I have played in Dubai so hopefully that is the place where I can make everything come together again.
“It was an amazing final round last year and, to be honest, I remember the triple bogey before the hole- in-one but I hope that I can take a lot of positivity from my performance there and, of course, at the Dubai World Championship and get another great result.”
McIlroy, meanwhile, returns to a golf course and city with which he has become so familiar since making his breakthrough European Tour victory there in 2009, while Westwood is hoping to go one better than 2010, when he lost in a a sudden-death play-off to Spain’s Miguel Angel Jiménez.
The evergreen Jiménez, simply one of the game’s great characters, will also be in town along with another former champion, America’s Fred Couples, who will be a huge attraction to the huge crowds that will once again pack the Emirates Golf Club over four days to witness the thrilling US$2.5 million shoot-out.
Couples, the 1995 Omega Dubai Desert Classic champion, is one of 11 former Major winners in the field, a list that includes The European Tour’s most recent champion, Paul Lawrie. The Scotsman was unbeatable in Qatar last week, picking up his second career title in Doha with a stunning final round performance of seven under par 65 to hold off the challenge of Jason Day and Peter Hanson.
Lawrie’s first win in Qatar came at the beginning of 1999, the same year that he went onto to become Open Champion. Englishman Robert Rock returns to action after holding off the challenge of McIlroy and Woods to win the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, the event that launched The European Tour’s 2012 Desert Swing.
