Danny Willett is hoping the Omega Dubai Desert Classic can once again provide the ideal kick-start to his season as he returns to defend his title at Emirates Golf Club.
The Englishman made one of the clutch putts of the season on the 72nd hole last year, facing a 15-foot birdie effort down the slope to hold off the challenge of Rafa Cabrera Bello and Andy Sullivan.
The slippery left-to-righter found the bottom of the cup, handing Willett the Dallah trophy and just two months later he went on win a Green Jacket, claiming his first Major Championship at the Masters Tournament.
Willett admitted the end of the 2016 campaign did not go as he would have liked and he is hoping to find his rhythm again at a happy hunting ground.
"This was the start of really what was an amazing season," he said. "I played some pretty good golf in the run up to this week and then it was one of them weeks where everything clicked nicely.
"It was the first time I think within a tournament that I had been in and around the lead all week, instead of either coming from behind early on or having a lead, a biggish-lead with nine to play.
"So really battling it out with Sully and Raf. They both birdied the last to tie and then I happened to hole that putt on the last.
"Actually needing to do that to win a golf tournament, again, that's not happened before. And to be able to stand up there and roll it in, it was big for my confidence and big for the things ultimately that went after that.
"You look at Augusta, I could draw on Dubai quite a lot, how I played and how I played under pressure and how I composed myself mentally and having to hole a few key putts at the right time. You look at Augusta on the back nine and that kind of typifies that perfectly."
It was big for my confidence and big for the things ultimately that went after that - Danny Willett
After starting the season with a top ten at the UBS Hong Kong Open, Willett missed the cut at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and has been working hard since then to get his game back exactly where he wants it.
The 29 year old has long been regarded as one of the hardest workers on the European Tour and he is once again enjoying the graft that has made him a five-time winner.
"I think the only thing that you can really control and that you can really plan to try and do the same is to work as hard as you did every day up until whatever event it is," he said. "And if that leads to playing great, fine. If it doesn't you're just going to keep working hard and wait for the next chance that you get.
"I think what here and Augusta did tell me is that if I keep working hard, when I get the chances, I feel like I'm pretty ready to take them there and then, which is massive confidence-wise to be able to tell yourself when you play well.
"We're practising hard again because we want to practise hard. The back end of last season, I was practising just because I felt like I should be practising. So it's nice to get that little bit of fun back into your belly and to actually want to come back out and want to do the things that we did last year."
Willett will play rounds one and two alongside 14-time Major champion Tiger Woods, who is making his first regular European Tour appearance since teeing it up here in 2014.
Woods has four Green Jackets compared to Willett's one, and the Sheffield native revealed that the famous chip-in on the 16th in 2005 at Augusta National was a key factor in the then 17 year old taking his golf to the next level.
"My first memories of him are chipping in at 16 at Augusta," he said. "I was kind of really getting into golf then and you see that, it was almost like the perfect advert for that tournament. I remember that shot that he played over millions and millions of times, him and Stevie going crazy and the cameras shaking and the ball just dropping in.
"It's those moments I think he created for guys that are my kind of age, that really spurred them on to train harder and to practise harder and to try and accomplish even a miniscule amount of what he has.
"I think it's great for the European Tour to have arguably the greatest player of all time come to Dubai and to try and take that championship trophy away on Sunday."
