What You Need To Know
Majlis Course at the Emrites Golf Club has hosted 25 of the 27 Dubai Desert Classics including every event since 2001. Seven of the last 10 winners finished the week with a top-five Driving Distance (DD). Winners in each of the last eight years have finished the week ranked inside the top-20 for Greens in Regulation (GIR).
The current forecast calls for winds of 25 miles per hour on Friday with gusts blowing even harder.
There’s Henrik and Everybody Else
Henrik Stenson is by far the favorite in this field with 13.3 percent odds to win and for good reason. Henrik has finished in the top 10 in 11 of his last 15 starts on the European Tour, and if his missed cut from the Barclays last August is removed then he’s accumulated two wins (including the Open Championship), two runner-ups, and four additional top-10 finishes in his last 10 tournaments on either circuit.
Stenson’s 67.9 Long-term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) leads the field as do his 17.2 Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) and 72.1 percent LT Driving Accuracy (DA). Stenson’s 74.9 percent LT GIR is tied for fourth, and although he typical tees off with a club other than the driver his 292.9-yard LT DD is a top-35 distance this week.
Stenson has finished 13th and sixth the past two years at this event and has three career wins in Dubai.
Per our free Trends tool, on the eight occasions since 2015 in which Henrik has been at least $10,000 and had odds to win of at least 10 percent he has destroyed his salary-based expectations with great Consistency and massive average ownership:
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Rafael Cabrera-Bello ($10,800): RCB has two top-twenty finishes on this year’s Desert Swing, and he finished as the runner-up here last season. Cabrera-Bello won at this course in 2012. Rafa’s 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score ranks third, his amazing 75.5 percent LT GIR leads the field, and his 14.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 11th.
Sergio Garcia ($9,500): Garcia has made seven starts at this event but his best finish is T11 in 2009. Garcia’s 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score and 16 Adj Bird Avg are both ranked second, and his 72.5 percent LT GIR is in the top 15.
Jeunghun Wang ($9,300): Wang has won three times on the European Tour in just 29 starts. He’s on fire in the desert with a win and an 11th-place finish in the past two weeks. Wang’s 68.1 Recent Adj Rd Score is the best mark among golfers who have made more than one start the past six weeks. Despite his stellar form he has only a nine to 12 percent FantasyLabs projected ownership (accessible in our Player Models).
Tyrell Hatton ($8,800): Hatton has ripped off seven straight top-25 finishes including a win at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championships and a 13th-place finish at Abu Dhabi two weeks ago. Hatton’s 69.8 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for eighth, his 70.4 percent LT GIR is inside the top 30, and his 14.1 LT Adj Bird Avg is in the top 20.
Bradley Dredge ($7,700): Dredge’s 70.0 LT Adj Rd Score ranks 15th, and he has a top-20 LT Adj Bird Avg (14.2). Dredge has started the year off in fine form with 21st- and 19th-place finishes on the first two legs of the Desert Swing. Dredge finished 18th here last year and 10th in 2011. We currently have him projected at a low five to eight percent ownership in large tournaments.
Robert Rock ($7,100): Rock has missed the cut the past two weeks but has excellent course history here: His 69.7 Course Adj Rd Score is sixth among golfers who have made more than two starts at this course. He has three top-10 finishes in his last four starts at Emirates Golf Club and is an excellent play in guaranteed prize pools where we have him projected at zero to one percent ownership.
Peter Uihlein ($6,700): Uihlein’s 301.8-yard LT DD is 10th overall, and his 14.0 LT Adj Bird Avg is a top-25 mark. Uihlien finished 49th two weeks ago at Abu Dhabi and finished 15th here in his most recent appearance in 2015.
The Euro Levitanimal
Adam Levitan created a course history model, which I’ve tweaked. Stephen Gallacher ($6,900) is the adjusted model’s top-rated golfer — its Levitanimal, if you will. Gallacher’s impressive 68.8 Course Adj Rd Score is first among golfers who have made more than two starts here. He missed the cut last year but had an incredible stretch from 2011 to 2015 in which he had back-to-back wins and second-, third- and 10th-place finishes at the event.
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Be sure to visit our suite of Tools to research all of the golfers. Good luck this week!
