Dustin Johnson will tee it up for the third consecutive year when the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA gets underway tomorrow and the big-hitting American is hoping to seal a first European Tour win in the capital after narrowly missing out for the last two years.
The World No.3 made his Abu Dhabi debut in 2017, finishing tied second, just one shot behind Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, before marking his second appearance on the Desert Swing’s opening tournament last year with a tied ninth finish with Fleetwood once again getting his hands on the trophy.
“It would definitely mean a lot, I would like to win over here,” said the former World N0.1. “Obviously, I haven’t played too many events over here, but yeah, I want to win every tournament I play in, no matter where it is and what tournament it is. It’s definitely a goal of mine this week is to put myself in position to have a chance to win on Saturday.”
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Future talent
Whilst practising on Monday, Johnson, was seen on the putting green giving some words of advice to Dubai-born teen sensation Rayhan Thomas, who will be playing in the 30th edition of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic before heading to Oklahoma State to play college golf later this year
“I met Rayhan a couple years ago when I came here for the first time,” said the 34 year old. “Obviously he’s a really good young player and he’s got a lot of potential. Nobody really knows where that will go, but he’s definitely got the skills to be a good player.”
M5 joy
The 19-time PGA Tour winner will be keeping the new TaylorMade M5 driver in his bag this week after testing it out in Hawaii, and the American was delighted with the progress TaylorMade make each year. “I think it’s the best driver they’ve made,” he said. “You know, every year that we come out with a new driver, I always feel like, I don’t know how they do it, but they always somehow tend to make it better than the previous one, which I didn’t think they could possibly do. But you know, TaylorMade does a great job, and they are always innovating new products, and they always seem to make them better than the previous ones.”
