MENA Tour star Luke Joy is excited about playing in the OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic for the third time where he has a chance to mix it with the European Tour’s finest again. This time the English professional that bases himself out of Yas Links, Abu Dhabi doesn’t want the pressure to get to him and just wants to treat the prestigious event the same as he would any other. 

“I’m just going to try and chill out and go out there and have fun,” Joy says to Worldwide Golf ahead of his first round on Thursday. “I’m going to try and approach it like a MENA Tour event as they’re the guys who gave me the opportunity to come and mix with the European Tour stars. I want to get my game in shape so I’m ready to give 2018 everything.”

Nerves and excitement are bound to affect any golfer that’s not used to this magnitude of a tournament but Joy feels like he handles this much better these days than the first time he competed.

“Last year I was ok but the first year I played I remember standing on the first tee and my heart was skipping a beat, I thought to myself ‘wow this is really cool!’ I’m hoping to dial that down this year and just want to have fun. There’s always a great feel here and a lot going on for the guys so I’m looking forward to playing.”

Joy plays in a three-ball with Soren Kjeldsen and Ashun Wu at 13:00 tomorrow (Thursday) but he’s already got his eyes set on a different group if his dreams came true in the final round.

“If I could have any group I’d obviously have to have Rory Mcllroy in there and I would probably go with Rayhan Thomas. That would certainly be a nice weekend trio and a lot of fun.”