European Tour - Abu Dhabi HSBC Tour Championship

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Although most of the discussions and headlines coming from Abu Dhabi so far have been about events that have very little to do with the European Tour's new season, such as the Ryder Cup captaincy and Rory's new golfing gear, there is still a pretty decent golf turnament taking place this week over there. And talking of headlines, even though there seem to be only one topic of conversation when it comes to this year's golf tournament proper,i.e. the much hyped Rory vs Tiger mega-duel, there was something else that caught my eye this early morning, and that was Dufner's comments that he is considering taking European Tour membership this year..."I think it makes you a little bit of a better player to come over here and experience golf in different places against different golfers". Good on you Jason, I like this guy more and more every day...

As for the Rory -Tiger duel, no idea who's gonna win it (probably Nike), or if the winner will even be one of them, all I hope for is that these two 3-million dollar men will put on a good display of their A-golf game and live up to all that hype (to be fair, both of them played pretty well last year here). Other than this, the Abu Dhabi tournament 7-year history has been dominated by two players: Casey who won it twice and is/was usually doing very well in the desert, and especially by Martin Kaymer who's record here is quite incredible, with three wins and a runner up finish in the space of four years between 2008-2011. And as we know, both of them have been more or less completely out of form the last year or so, but have been showing some signs of a turnaround towards the end of last year. Another player who fits the same sort of patterns (did well here in the past, out of form for quite a while and showing signs of recovery lately) is Stenson, and judging by the look of the early leaderboard, he's looking pretty determined right now to add a win to the two runner up spots he earned here in the past. Unfortunately, no real signs of a turnaround in form yet from last year's popular winner, Robert Rock, after famously beating Tiger on the final stretch (probably the day when Woods came up with his favorite 'joke': 'Is that your real hair?").

Other things that I'd like to keep an eye on this week would be the Oosthuizen vs Rose duel for #4 in the world (even though the south african is not playing in Abu Dhabi), two of the best players who could potentially upset the top three OWGR status-quo this year, plus hopefully a confirmation that Harrington's putting and his oveall game in general are on the up. Also, I hope for a good week and a good result for Jason Dufner (not just because he's been saying the right things). But apart from all this, I wouldn't be surprised and wouldn't mind to see a new and not so expected winner emerging this week, just like RRock was last year. And as the first 'big league' event of the year, I'm hoping for a great tournament overall to set us up nicely for an even greater 2013 season...

And Caroline crashed out of the Aussie Open. Do we see a pattern?
"Fatigue", perhaps?