Omega Dubai Desert Classic

Omega Dubai Desert Classic Note this event starts Wed night....Dubai is 12 hours ahead of PST. [B]Martin Kaymer -130 vs. Tiger Woods[/B] Kaymer won by 8 shots two weeks ago on a desert course that suited his game. Yes, he played poorly at the Qatar Masters, and now his best finish there was a T28 in the past 3 years. Here at the Dubai Desert Classic, Kaymer was T4, T4 and T2 L3Y. He has 4 Euro wins in his last 9 starts. He was quoted this week as saying, "the greens are my friends here and I know I'm playing well." Most UK sportsbooks have Kaymer as the 5-1 favorite. Tiger is second at 13/2. The time to bet against Tiger is now IMO. Yes, he has a good track record here on the Emirates GC, however his record in San Diego where he finished T44 LW, (his worst finish ever there) and won the LAST FIVE TIMES HE TEED IT UP AT TORREY PINES, a 74-75 weekend finish, leads us to believe he has major issues. The new Sean Foley swing is not working. It's a mess. Poor timing, poor rotation, lousy hand action, too steep of a swing plane, I can go on forever. The European Tour has followed the PGA Tour's lead in making marquee pairings this season and this week for the first two rounds, the World No's 1,2 and 3 ranked players, Westwood, Kaymer and Tiger will be paired. Tiger doesn't have the intimidation factor currently. Westwood has shown poor form so far in 2011, but I think he'll bounce back. [B]Rory McIlroy -130 vs. Tiger Woods[/B] Rors only Euro title was in this event in 2009. Last year he finished T6 and this year he has a runner up finish at Abu Dhabi.

Alf, thanks for posting. Do you rate these plays with units?

All plays are single units unless noted in the post. I've handicapped the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and nothing stands out yet, perhaps round by round plays later in the week.

Kaymer is now -120 to -125, gotta love the Tiger backers...

"Kaymer won by 8 shots two weeks ago on a desert course that suited his game. Yes, last week he missed the cut at the Qatar Masters..." - Alf Wrong. Kaymer played 4 rounds. "...but his best finish there was a T28 in the past 3 years." That occurred 3 days ago. Incidentally, a question was asked of you a few days ago in the Waste Management Phoenix Open thread. Did you miss it?

Jacques welcome to the field thread. I'm glad you are paying attention and reading my write-ups. I stand corrected, LW after Kaymer's 77 in round one, it was almost impossible for him to make the cut, somehow he did, good job. Watching the first round and seeing him take swing after swing trying to get his ball out of the rocks was painful. ....next, we are a posting and discussion site here, record keeping you'll have to do on your own and write down all the plays and grade them accordingly, because once and awhile the threads get pushed or deleted and I'm sure that is what happened with the Bob Hope etc...

Yet on the left hand side of the page their is an "Alf M's Record" box. That's confusing since this isn't a record keeping site. With that said... Hope you get out of the funk Alf. Good luck this week.

Good start on Day 1. Is this tourney a Top 70 cut - Is that typical for a European Event?

If anyone is keeping records, it would be interesting to compare the "deleted or pushed" threads records. To those that aren't. And I'll echo Burgers comments. Good luck this week.

Euro events are top 60 and ties.