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Mark Hughes

Eagles

Take It Easy

Tee Times Revealed For Shane Lowry's Opening Rounds In Dubai Desert Classic

Wednesday, 26 January 2022 09:45

It's a star studded list of names in the field again this week.

Shane Lowry will play alongside Sergio Garcia and Tyrell Hatton in the opening rounds of the Dubai Desert Classic. 

The tournament gets underway at the Emirates Golf Club tomorrow with an $8m prize fund. 

The Clara man needs a strong run of form to continue inside the world's top 50, which guarantees automatic invitations to the majors outside of his exemption to The Open as a winner. 

He's currently 49th in the world but will be confident of adding to his T-12 position from a week ago, as he traditionally goes well at the tracks in the middle-east. 

He's on the course in around 4:10am Irish time. 

World number two Collin Morikawa will be favourite heading into the event though, as he looks to pick up where he left off in a sparkling 2021. 

I have a lot to work on. Spent all afternoon yesterday working. It was probably the hardest, longest I've worked in a while pre tournament like on a Monday but it's good. Sometimes you need to have that kind of reset button and really figure out and dive deep. I had my agent and my caddie and we were just literally sitting on the range for hours trying to figure out what to do.

We know what's not working. It's just trying to get back to my old swing, right, and trying to get back to what I know I can do. So I still have a couple things I've got to work out and feel, but I'm in a much better position right now, at least if I had to go play tomorrow or right now, versus where I was last week.

Were the issue the compounded by how windy it was in Abu Dhabi, because that can knock you off, can't it?

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't help. That's how you kind of prep, and I think I heard Phil talk about, you know, starting the year in Hawai'i, you always prepare for really windy and you're going to be off-balance and I know the past couple years when I played out there, you almost have to come back home and reset.

This year wasn't windy in Hawai'i, so I felt fine. Come out here, blowing in Abu Dhabi last week, and sometimes you just have to find the center again. It happens. Thankfully I was still able to learn a lot from it and show up this week with a fresh mind and ready to go.

You famously found the reset button to fantastic effects in July last year after The Scottish Open. Can we draw any parallels potentially this week?

Yeah, you know, the Scottish is weird because I felt like everything was actually really good. I had just blamed it on my clubs, which normally it's not the case, right, but I was thinking, you know, I made my iron switch, I made a little putter switch. So there were certain things there that the game felt good.

Last week, the game didn't feel good. I didn't know where the golf ball was going and I had to kind of figure that out, so look, yesterday was much needed and I feel a lot better where I am heading into this Thursday.

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