When Netflix brought their cameras and their production team from F1 to golf, had they also brought with them the title of that breakout sports series they wouldn't have been far wrong. Drive to Survive would be a far better maxim for golf in 2025 than the one about putting, because while we know that approaches and putts so often dictate the outcome of an event, it's driving which can make or break careers.
Almost without exception, if you find a player who has fallen off the face of the earth, chances are their problems begin off the tee. That's what almost did for Brendon Todd, for example, and that's what's currently happening to Taylor Montgomery, one of the best putters in the world yet unable to hit putts of consequence because it's simply taken him too many shots to get there. Drive it as he is and you're cooked.
Strictly on a numbers basis, off-the-tee stats rarely define a tournament, but there's overwhelming evidence that here at the Dubai Desert Classic, we can apply that same qualifier: the idea that if you don't drive the ball really well, you've got a problem. Last year's podium was made up of the three best drivers in a field of 126 and in the six years of strokes-gained data, we're still waiting for a champion who ranked outside the top 10.
Now, six years isn't much to go on, but this fact does set Emirates Golf Club apart. Yas Links, Abu Dhabi, Eichenried, Wentworth, the Belfry, Al Hamra, Green Eagle, even the Earth Course down the road – pick your favourite DP World Tour venue and someone has overcome a less-than-elite driving display to win, but not here. The roll-of-honour also features some of the finest drivers of a ball this fine golf tour has had.
Winner of the Irish Open last September and then runner-up in the DP World Tour Championship, Rasmus has battled McIlroy twice lately and impressed on both occasions. That Irish Open win in particular was a big deal and while there was some fortune involved, by the time they faced off again in Dubai, it looked like he'd grown an inch or two.
Securing his PGA Tour card there, a big year awaits with the Ryder Cup an obvious goal and while it looks like it started badly in the Team Cup, I wouldn't be so sure.
It was a bit odd to see the Europeans stick to the same pairings each day and Hojgaard was tasked with holding the hand of Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, no doubt a late change of plan following the withdrawal of twin brother Nicolai.
For that price, we get a former winner of the DP World Tour Championship and the Ras al Khaimah, two more Middle East courses made for strong drivers. And we get a player who produced the best tee-to-green figures of his burgeoning career right here last year, finishing seventh despite ranking 71st in putting among the 74 who made the cut.
Runner-up at Torrey Pines on his next start and then a contender at Augusta, Hojgaard's steep rate of improvement then began to plateau through a quiet summer, before at last he started to show big signs of improvement in his powerhouse long-game towards the end of the year. It just wasn't quite enough to make the field in Dubai and defend that title he'd won a year earlier.
We've seen him once since, again driving the ball extremely well to finish 24th in the Nedbank, and that made it five top-25s in as many starts dating back to the Open de France. He looked like he was very close to winning again, or at least getting in the mix for the first time since he hit the front on the Saturday of the Masters.
As I've said, missing the Team Cup is a negative and it denies him a competitive outing, but he'd been preparing in Dubai and was back out on the course on Monday morning, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. At his best, which he appeared close to at the end of last year, he'd be the biggest danger to the big four. Indeed when he won the DP World Tour Championship, it was as a well-backed 16/1 shot.
Nicolai aside my focus was very much on those Team Cup players and, with six of them absent, that leaves 14 to choose from. It would be fair to say I considered each of them including Nicolai's late replacement, Julien Guerrier, who is a strong driver as so many of them are. Among the Europeans, he was behind only Hojgaard and Romain Langasque on my shortlist and is a fair bit bigger in the betting.
Preference though is for two from the winning side, starting with LAURIE CANTER.
He was excellent last week, capping his performance with a thumping singles win over Langasque and clearly revelling in it all. I wonder whether he felt a bit of redemption, too, having given up a big chance to earn a full LIV Golf spot at the very same golf course little more than a year before. It's funny how things work out: had he taken that opportunity, all the good things that have followed on the tour he grew up watching may not have.
Anyway, a full DP World Tour member with a winner's exemption owing to his tenacious success in Germany last summer, Canter should be set for a big season and could yet emerge as a Ryder Cup option. That won't be easy, not without access to the majors and the PGA Tour, but his prowess off the tee, fundamental to the case this week, is something Europe really can't have enough of at a course like Bethpage.
The trepidation stems from the fact that a week ago, on the eve of that event, it was reported that McKibbin is set to sign with LIV Golf and join the team which features Rahm and Hatton. He certainly didn't offer much in the way of a rebuttal and it seems that a deal is imminent.
It would be disingenuous to draw parallels with Meronk last year, runner-up before departing for LIV, as it seems Meronk's deal happened very quickly after Dubai. However, what seems clear is that McKibbin's performance wasn't affected last week and I'd note that he wasn't asked a single question about LIV Golf during his press conferences, no doubt a directive from the DP World Tour communications office.
This 28-year-old hasn't quite lived up to his amateur pedigree yet but he was third in the world at one stage and given how he drives the ball, you can see how he won titles at home and abroad as a youngster.
Despite that prowess off the tee it was a tough rookie season on the DP World Tour, but thanks to a burst of form in the spring (contended at Green Eagle) and then a gutsy display in Korea (sixth) he kept his card narrowly, before going on to make three cuts out of three to begin the new season.
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