Three-time winner Martin Kaymer has added his name to the 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, it was announced Tuesday.
The former world No 1, a two-time major champion, returns to the National Course for the January 21-24 event after his uncharacteristic collapse in the capital earlier this year, when he let slip a 10-shot lead on Sunday to gift the title to Frenchman Gary Stal.
Kaymer will be keen to make amends for that in two months’ time, joining an already impressive line-up that contains current world No 1 Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, the newly anointed 2015 Race to Dubai champion. Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson have also signed up for the $2.7 million (Dh9.9m) event, meaning the Abu Dhabi field comprises four of the world’s top seven players.
Kaymer, now at 26th in the global rankings, has a strong affinity with the tournament having won his first professional event there, in 2008, and then going on to back-to-back victories in 2010 and 2011. His 24-under par total four years ago still stands as a tournament record, while his eight-stroke win that year represents the largest margin of victory in the capital.
The German, though, insists his relationship with Abu Dhabi has not changed following January’s implosion.
“It’s not mixed at all,” he said. “People say that, but I don’t feel that. I still have amazing memories. It really feels like my second home. Coming to Abu Dhabi is where I had my first victory, my first title, where my career really started. The people really like me there and I really get along with them.”
“I’ve so many positive memories and even what happened this year I still have, to be honest, 90 to 95 per cent good memories. The last two hours of golf on the Sunday, I thought a lot about it on the Sunday night and the Monday, talked a lot about it with my brother and my dad and a couple of other people, and we figured out what the reasons were and it was all good.
“So I don’t worry too much about it; it was a great experience. It could have also happened somewhere else, like Germany or Italy, but I was glad it happened in Abu Dhabi because it was the beginning of the season and it was a great learning season in terms of that. Even though I didn’t win, I saw Abu Dhabi as a very successful event.”
The German, 30, finished his 2015 European Tour season on Sunday, with tied-10th at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. He concluded the campaign 22nd in the Race to Dubai, with only five top-10 finishes in all. He hopes to begin 2016 with a return to his old form in Abu Dhabi.
“I feel like next season is very, very important for me with the Olympic Games and the Ryder Cup,” Kaymer said. “So Abu Dhabi will be the first test in 2016 that my work in the winter was proper or not. And the way I’ve played in Abu Dhabi in the past is always very satisfying for me, so it could be a great combination of a good, hard practice, getting the motivation for the whole season in Abu Dhabi if I do well there and then starting the season.”
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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