OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic and WM Phoenix Open preview

And so, to Dubai. After two thrilling and incident packed weeks of golf in the Middle East the European Tour arrives at the Dubai Desert Classic, the oldest golf event in the region on the first grass course in the United Arab Emirates. If the Classic can live up to the drama that we have seen over the first two weeks of this year's Middle East Swing then we could be in for another great chapter in the history of this premier European Tour event; both the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and CommercialBank Qatar Masters have been decided on the final green of the final round, with the Brits showing the world that they have unquestionable strength in depth and can contend with the great names of the game anywhere and whenever they are playing.

Two weeks ago Jamie Donaldson held off the competition from Justin Rose and Thorbjorn Olesen to claim his second European Tour win, in Abu Dhabi, and last week Chris Wood claimed his first European Tour win by finishing birdie-eagle to win by one from Sergio Garcia and George Coetzee on a dramatic final day in Qatar. This week, in the 24^th Dubai Desert Classic, Lee Westwood makes his first appearance of 2013 having completed his move the Florida over Christmas in an attempt to boost his chances of Major Championship success. The Englishman and former World Number One has come close at the Emirates Golf Club on several occasions including three runner-up finishes in 1999, 2010 and 2012; he held the 54-hole lead going into the final day last year and wasn't able to hold off Rafael Cabrera-Bello as he became the third successive Spanish champion in Dubai. Westwood has of course claimed a title in the emirate at the 2009 Dubai World Championship, but has yet to achieve a victory in this tournament.

Rafael Cabrera-Bello will defend his title this week and Westwood will lead a challenge for it that includes Abu Dhabi Champion Jamie Donaldson, Qatar winner Chris Wood, runner-up in Qatar Sergio Garcia, Italy's Matteo Manassero and past Dubai Champions including Colin Montgomerie, Mark O'Meara, David Howell, Jose Maria Olazabal and Robert Jan-Derksen. But in truth this will be the weakest field assembled for this tournament for many years, a reflection of the growing stature of the Abu Dhabi and Qatar tournaments and the date that the Classic holds, opposite the Phoenix Open and a week before Pebble Beach with Riviera and the first WGC of the season just three weeks away.

Nevertheless I am sure that the players which have decided to play at the Emirates Golf Club will add to the now illustrious history of this great championship. Ballesteros, Els, Woods, Couples, O'Meara and Olazabal have all lifted the giant coffee pot and the tournament has led the way for the other events in the Middle East and been the base for the explosion of grass golf course construction in the region.

This week, as two weeks ago, is a desert double-header with Dubai and Scottsdale providing stunning backdrops to the two oldest tournaments of their kind on the European Tour and PGA Tour. The Phoenix Open was first played as the Arizona Open in 1932, very few people would have ever envisioned the tournament becoming as big as it is today; in 1935 after a lack of local support the tournament folded and it wasn't until 1939 and the intervention of Bob Goldwater Sr that the Phoenix Open returned. It returned under the management and leadership of the Thunderbirds, a Phoenix-based charitable organisation, and the event went from strength to strength being played at the Phoenix Country Club and the Arizona Country Club with several iconic figures of the game claiming victory.

Nelson, Hogan, Locke, Demaret, Littler, Middlecoff, Casper, Venturi, Fleck, Palmer, Nicklaus, Boros, Miller, Pate, Crenshaw, Graham, Wadkins, Peete and Sutton among others won the Phoenix Open between 1939 and 1986, making the Phoenix Open a sought after title, but it was in 1987 that this big golf tournament became a truly iconic event that the whole of the Arizona community could get behind. The move to TPC Scottsdale has made it the most attended golf tournament in the world and one of the top ten spectator events held annually anywhere in the world. The first year achieved a then record attendance of 257,000 – some 70,000 more people attended the Phoenix Open in the first year at the TPC than did a year earlier in the final year at Phoenix Country Club.

Attendances have since increased dramatically and in seven of the last eleven years have topped the half a million mark for spectators over the week of the tournament, with over 100,000 people attending in a single day on 30 days over the last 22 editions of the tournament. Attendances have topped 150,000 on 8 occasions for a single day and the single day record stands at a staggering 173,210 set in the third round of the 2012 tournament. Only once in the last 10 years has an attendance on a Friday or Saturday dipped below 100,000 and that was still an attendance of over 74,000 on the Friday in 2011. Truly unbelievable numbers which bare testament to the incredible job the Thunderbirds have done since they took on the running of the Phoenix Open some 74 years ago.

Over 20,000 seats are located at the par three 16^th hole which is marketed as the loudest hole in golf, but it isn't all about one hole at the TPC Scottsdale, this course is truly world-class and could easily stage a Ryder Cup if the opportunity ever came. It boasts many holes which would be brilliant for match play and has one of the finest four hole finishing stretches in all of golf, beginning at the par five 15^th, followed by the 16^th then the drivable par four 17^th and the demanding par four 18^th. This is a true stadium course, I would argue by far a better example of a stadium course than the original at TPC Sawgrass, it has mounding in all of the right places and the Thunderbirds have fulfilled the potential of this great event by doing everything they possibly can to attract all categories of spectator to the Phoenix Open each January.

 The field over the years has always been solid but with the emergence of the Middle East Swing and the establishment of the World Golf Championships the event has struggled to get the very best field possible because of its positioning on the schedule, but what it sometimes lacks in top players it more than makes up for the course and the spectators, generating a unique atmosphere every year. 2013 will see Phil Mickelson return to the tournament he has won on two occasions, most notably in 1996 when he beat Justin Leonard in a sudden-death play-off. He will be joined by 3-time Major Champion Padraig Harrington, Masters Champion Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Stewart Cink, Davis Love III, YE Yang, Hunter Mahan, Nicolas Colsaerts, Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, Nick Watney, Brandt Snedeker, Martin Kaymer, Vijay Singh and defending champion Kyle Stanley.

All of the action begins on Thursday morning in Dubai and following the crowning of the Phoenix Open champion the next play we will see in the Desert is the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai at the conclusion of the 2013 European Tour season. Both of these two tournaments have provided many moments of drama and excitement over the years as these videos will show you. 

The season is moving ever closer to the first World Golf Championship of the year and from next week my blog will focus on issues concerning tournaments in the United States, beginning at Pebble Beach. My blog will ask and answer the question as to whether pro-ams on the tour schedule are out of date and whether they actually are needed in a sport which already has pro-ams on the Wednesday of every professional tournament outside of the Majors. Catch my next blog on Wednesday 6th February 2013.