Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and Bob Hope Classic Lots of golf action this week as the PGA Tour swings to Palm Springs and the Euro Tour in is the Arbian Gulf for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, where 6 of the Top 10 and 16 of the Top 30 players in the World are teeing it up, including all FOUR 2010 major championship winners.
[B]Bob Hope Classic..........starts Wednesday[/B]
[B]Chad Campbell -120 [/B]vs Rory Sabbatini
The linesmakers were lazy in matching these two together. They tied at -9 LW in the Sony Open, but Campbell a winner here in 2006 has played this event every year but one in the L9 years, while Sabbatini has not played in this tournament since 2006.
This is the last of the 5 day Pro-Am tournaments and Sabbatini doesn't exactly have the personality nor patience for this format IMO, while Campbell is the easy going like-able player that the celebs and Pro-Am partners will enjoy.
[B]added Steve Marino -110 [/B]vs Bubba Watson
[B]Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship[/B]...starts Wed night
[B]Lee Westwood -110[/B] vs Martin Kaymer
Yes, Kaymer is the defending champion, in fact he has won here 2x, but I'll gladly take the World No. #1 who has had 8 Top 3 finishes in his last 11 events over the Kaiser any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
[B]Graeme McDowell -115[/B] vs Rory McIlroy
G Mac is perhaps the hottest player on the planet right now and recall his last round of tournament play was a course record 62 at Kapalua, so he should be in good spirits and has set his goals to climbing the World rankings this season.
An interesting note, Rors just broke up with his long time girl-friend of 6 years. This angle has been MIB going against Adam Scott and Tiger in the past.
[B]Retief Goosen -110[/B] vs Padraig Harrington
We have to take a stand and bet against Paddy here. After he won 2 majors, he started changing his swing and we made a small fortune going against him in '09....here is what he has been up to lately...
[I]According to IrishGolfDesk.com, Padraig Harrington the inveterate tinkerer has, among other things, changed the grips on his clubs, flattened all his clubs by a degree of loft, weakened his grip, changed his trigger for takeaway which means a smaller hip turn and bigger coil, changed his chin position at the top of his backswing and tweaked his putting routine. Whew. And we didn't go into detail. Paddy wouldn't be Paddy without a few, eh, changes[/I].
[B]Ross Fisher -120[/B] vs Padraig Harrington
We'll back Fisher here as well. Our thinking is that we have 2 very strong players going against Paddy and at worst one of them will finish ahead of him over 72 holes and more than likely we'll cash 2-0 in this spot than go 0-2.
[B]Ian Poulter -130[/B] vs Phil Mickelson
Mickelson is teeing it up for the first time this week a million miles away from San Diego his home town AND where he usually starts the season on the PGA Tour at Torrey Pines, which is next week. I see this week as a possible tune-up and easy appearance fee money. The Championship course is fairly tight off the tee and that usually spells trouble for the big hitting lefty.
Poulter was T6 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and finished 2nd here in this event last year. He has fared very well in desert events and loves the hard fast Bermuda greens.
