Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship Odds: Five each way selections for the 2022 DP World Tour opener

Resident golf tipster @JWorsley89 hit the bar twice last week with 35/1 and 45/1 placed efforts in the Sony Open in Hawaii leaving him on 3.5pts profit for 2022 (2 events). This week he has five picks for the Abu Dhabi Championship which starts on Thursday.

Despite the new era DP World Tour season officially starting in November last year at the eventful 36-hole Joburg Open, there’s a sense that this week, with the first event of 2022, the new season truly gets under way.

We start the year with the Abu Dhabi Championship, the first event of a three-week stint in the UAE. Though gone is Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which has been the home of the tournament since it’s inception in 2006 and in comes the beautiful Yas Links, designed by renowned architect, Kyle Phillips.

The Course

As the name suggests, Yas Links is a modern links like course placed in the desert of Abu Dhabi and by all accounts plays akin to many a modern links course you’ll find in the UK. It’s wide open and exposed, with huge greens and run off areas, playing firm and fast if conditions allow. 

There is water in-play throughout the course; I made it into double digits of holes in which it plays an obvious part, particularly down what could be a brutally difficult closing stretch if it gets windy. Then to add further difficulty to any stray tee shots, is said to be some tricky rough.

It’s obviously difficult to judge how the course will play without witnessing tournament play there. Though it hasn’t held a DP World Tour event before, it has hosted three MENA Tour events, a satellite tour based out in the Middle East, with winning scores of -13, -14 and -17. It is hard to know how those courses were setup though.

Similar courses

Therefore it makes sense to try and attack this from a different point of view. We can look at Kyle Phillips designs, many of which are links or links like courses.

The same can be said about golf in the Middle East in general. The majority of courses out there, played in Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and other events here in the UAE are played on wide open, exposed courses that can often require players to play “links” shots. 

Finally there’s the obvious of just looking at records on links courses.

Speaking of the other Kyle Phillips designs, Kingsbarns, one of the three courses used in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship could offer clues. As could Dundonald Links, which was used for the Scottish Open in 2017. 

We also have The Grove, an exposed resort course that hosted the British Masters in 2016. And more recently, last year’s Dutch Open venue, Bernardus Golf Club was wide open and links like, offering many of the same risk/reward opportunities that appear to be on offer this week in Abu Dhabi.

Weather

Now the weather could play a huge part with the course situated right on the coast of the Persian Gulf and there is predicted to be wind throughout the four days, with some particularly brutal 30mph+ speeds predicted on Friday, which would make for interesting viewing.

The Field

We have a strong field to kick off 2022 on the DPWT. World #2, Collin Morikawa will have good memories of the last time he was in the UAE, as he won not only the DP World Tour Championship but secured the Race to Dubai in the process. He is joined by four time runner-up on the previous course, Rory McIlroy and Norway’s Viktor Hovland rounds off the trio of players from inside the world’s top 10 making the trip to Yas Island.

The trio of Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland lead the way at the top of the betting. They represent the class of the field but in an event where we have the prospect of a weather bias over the opening two rounds, I’m even less interested in getting involved at such short prices as usual. 

Instead, I start with my own trio. A threesome who have excellent records on links/linksy courses and possess the right skillset to cope with the expected tricky conditions this week, starting with Tommy Fleetwood.

In 2021, Fleetwood produced yet another consistent year of results but will undoubtedly have been disappointed to finish it trophyless. This has been the story for him over the last couple of years, where he’s missed just 6 cuts in 45 starts, hit the top 10 on 11 occasions but has found a title elusive since winning the Nedbank Challenge at the end of 2019.

Most surprisingly, this usually supreme ball-striker was overly reliant on a good short-game for much of 2020 & 2021. Though towards the end of last year, we started to see a reemergence in his long game, particularly in approach and I’m hoping he can bring that into this year, starting this week in Abu Dhabi.

As a two-time winner of this event at the now deposed Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Fleetwood will have been disappointed to see it go. However, he should be able to draw on the fact that he usually starts his year in Abu Dhabi and starts it well, whilst also relishing the prospect of playing such a quality golf course. One that should suit his game every bit as well as the previous venue.

Growing up in Southport and as a member of Hillside GC, Fleetwood is well accustomed to links golf. He was runner-up to Shane Lowry at The Open Championship in 2019, also possessing multiple runner-up finishes at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and Scottish Open. The most memorable of these when 2nd in the 2020 Scottish Open, in which the players were tasked with handling some treacherous conditions throughout the week, of which many balked at but at which Fleetwood was vocally delighted to be playing in.

Further to this he has form at other Phillips designs, with a 4th place finish in the 2016 British Masters at Phillips’ course, The Grove. Along with multiple low scoring efforts at Kingsbarns in the Alfred Dunhill Links.

Finishing the 2021 DP World Tour season with four straight strong approach performances, his best for around 5 months, I’m hoping Fleetwood can maintain that into the new year. With the quality he possesses around the greens, where he ranked 29th last season and the fervour in which he plays in tough conditions, he can carry on his strong record in the Abu Dhabi Championship at the debuting Yas Links.

As a highly rated amateur, reaching #5 in the world, many thought it was only a matter of time before Australia’s Min Woo Lee started to find his feet in the pro ranks. After a strong 2021, that saw him win the Scottish Open against a stellar field and sit inside the top 50 in the world at year’s end, thanks to a strong finish to the 2021 DP World Tour season, where he went 2-8-4-16 in the final four events, we can say he appears to have definitely found his feet.

The quality golf he played last year was engineered by being an excellent driver of the ball, ranking 15th on tour last season, also one of the bigger hitters, where he ranked 11th for driving distance. He should enjoy the wide open expanses of Yas Links off-the-tee. Though more impressive and perhaps more important for this week is the quality of his short game. He ranked 3rd on tour around-the-greens last year, a huge factor in enabling him to come out on top in that Scottish Open victory.

Though the host course that week could not be described as a true links golf course, it is certainly linksy enough to draw encouragement from, for all it played much softer than the expected conditions this week. He also has form in the Middle East, with a 4th place finish in the Saudi International in 2019, another hugely exposed, open course at the mercy of the weather.

He’s already started his year in strong fashion, as he arrives in Abu Dhabi off the back of a 4th place finish at home in the Australian PGA Championship last week.

Lee is a player not short on confidence and with previous form at similar venues, whilst also possessing the quality around-the-greens and off-the-tee to take to this unfamiliar venue, he can kick off his 2022 DP World Tour season in the same style.

Robert MacIntyre endured a bit of an up and down year in 2021. He started strong, making the cut in all majors and hitting the top 10 in The Open Championship at Royal St Georges. Though toward the end of the year he was caught between two situations. One trying to earn his PGA Tour card via the Korn Ferry Tour, the other trying to make it onto the Ryder Cup team at Whistling Straits. 

He succeeded in doing neither and for most of the latter part of the year his golf suffered as a result. However, he did turn it around in the last couple of events of his year. 

First with a solid 24th place finish in the Dubai Championship, following it with an excellent 4th place finish in the season ending DP World Tour Championship. An event in which he was one of many who will have felt they could’ve won.

As a Scot, it comes as little surprise that MacIntyre is very at home playing links golf. He’s played in The Open twice, recording top 10s on both occasions, 6th in 2019 and 8th last year. This is possible in no small part because of the quality of short game he possesses, ranking 2nd in scrambling and 32nd around-the-greens last year. He also excels off-the-tee, ranking 16th in 2021 and though his approach stats leave something to be desired, he does rank high in greens-in-regulation, in 25th, which I feel could be more important this week.

He still possesses just the one DP World Tour victory to his name, at the 2020 Cyprus Showdown. There’s a feeling his talent outweighs this return and I’m hoping MacIntyre can carry momentum into 2022 from those last few results in 2021 and kick the new year off by contending in the desert.

Antoine Rozner had a similar profile to Robert MacIntyre in 2021. A strong start, that saw him win the Qatar Masters, the end of a Middle East swing where he finished no worse than 26th. Though his form tailed off in the middle part of the year, he found something towards the end of the year. Finishing 4th on his penultimate start of 2021 in the Dubai Championship.

That 4th was the latest in a really strong book of form for the Frenchman in the Middle East. His two DP World Tour wins came in this part of the world. The first when winning the Dubai Championship in 2020, the second that victory in Qatar at the start of last year. Which is even more pertinent to this week as the players were tasked with handling some really tricky, windy conditions over the course of the week.

Further to that he has a top 10 to his name at next week’s Dubai Desert Classic and finished 16th at the Abu Dhabi Championship, albeit at a different course.

Rozner is very strong from tee-to-green and a particularly adept ball-striker, ranking 6th in greens-in-regulation and 14th off-the-tee. With 65th around-the-greens solid enough and will only need to be solid if at his ball-striking best this week.

He’s a player who just has the feeling of a winner about him. Two wins in two years on tour and proving he can also do it in the aforementioned windy conditions of the Qatar Masters. If he can start this year like he did last year, he possesses the class to make his presence felt at the top of the leaderboard this week.

I was a little taken aback by John Catlin’s price this week. He’s gone from strength-to-strength on the DP World Tour over the last couple of years, winning three times and predominantly showing a liking for tough conditions. He also signed off last season with a quality 9th place finish in the DPWTC, holding a share of the lead there at the halfway stage. With a tee-to-green game to rival many in the field, where he ranked 9th last season, I’m taking him to kick off 2022 much like he finished 2021.

The one issue with Catlin this week is a lack of form at similar courses, though he’s shown more than enough aptitude for handling the tough conditions that could be set to descend onto Yas Links.

All his victories on the DP World Tour have taken place when low scoring hasn’t been required. The first of those was a win in the ever brutal Andalucia Masters at Valderrama in 2020, where he won with a score of +2, producing excellence on and around the greens. He followed that up a few weeks later in the Irish Open at Galgorm Castle, once again an event that posed many questions and in which -10 was enough to see him pick up a second title.

His third victory came in last year’s Austrian Open. Where the wind blew throughout the week, particularly over the first two rounds. He once again showed quality on and around-the-greens, though ultimately an excellent approach performance was key to him shooting -14 for the victory.

Throughout the year he transformed himself from looking like a short game wizard in 2020, to being a strong tee-to-green player in 2021, particularly improving his ball-striking in general. Finishing last season ranked 22nd in approach and 29th off-the-tee.

Though the putter betrayed him for much of last year, there was a noticeable upturn over his final handful of events, gaining strokes in his last four events of the year on the greens. His best run of putting performances of the year.

If he’s able to continue that into this year, whilst maintaining the quality tee-to-green that he showed all last year, Catlin has shown he’s more than capable of sticking it out if the conditions turn this event into a bit of a grind.