Abu Dhabi boost for Monty

EUROPE’S Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie must have been delighted as he watched the drama unfold in the final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship on Sunday.

Three of his ‘bankers’ for Celtic Manor in October, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter and Rory McIlroy, shot the lights out down the stretch on a golf course the pundits predicted the winning score, at best, would be around 15 to 18 under par. However, it doesn’t pay to underestimate these players and Kaymer duly reached 21 under, followed by Poulter on 20 and McIlroy on 19. Many others also shot well into double figures under par.

On that basis, European golf is distinctly healthy. Monty knows he will have a number of ‘rookies’ in his team, but with Kaymer and McIlroy in this category and others like the long-hitting Spaniard Alvaro Quiros and the Molinari brothers from Italy also contending strongly, it’s not something that will give the Scot sleepless nights.

The German and Irishman are rare talents indeed and, more than that, they are enthused by team golf and will be invaluable assets to the cause.

Poulter sometimes looks a little too brash for his own good, but the consistency of his scoring and outstanding general game now mark him out as a genuine contender for a major championship success in the near future.

McIlroy might well have won the European Race to Dubai order of merit last year instead of finishing runner-up behind Lee Westwood had he not committed himself to a series of tournaments at the latter end of the season; he finally ran out of steam in the closing event in Dubai.

Having learned from that experience, he has decided to opt out of this week’s Qatar Masters to be fresh and ready for his defence of the Dubai Desert Classic starting over the Emirates Course on Thursday week. After that, he heads to the US for an eight week stint culminating in the Masters at Augusta in the first week of April.

His ball-striking in Abu Dhabi was nothing short of astonishing, with even Kaymer and Poulter, two of the longest strikers in the game, struggling to keep up off the tee. McIlroy’s critics maintain he doesn’t hole his fair share of putts, but they may be failing to keep in mind that his approach play is so precise that he is left with a higher ratio of birdie chances than most others. They won’t all find the bottom of the cup but he still knocks in his fair share.

Pádraig Harrington doesn’t begin his season for another fortnight in Los Angeles and Darren Clarke also misses out although he will also be in Dubai.

Shane Lowry, who played so superbly to claim fourth on his own in Abu Dhabi, leads the Irish challenge in the second tournament of the “Desert Swing”. The big man from Co Offaly demonstrated his mettle on Sunday by coming home in 32, a run highlighted by a superb birdie at the long 18th where he played golf’s most difficult shot, an eighty-yard bunker shot, to perfection before rattling in the putt from 15 feet.

While you’d like to see him shed a few more pounds under the supervision of fitness guru, Eric Miller, the former Ireland and Lions rugby star, a fourth place finish in this distinguished company suggests great things lie ahead for Lowry. Sunday’s cheque for €75,000 pushed him to 14th in the order of merit with €86,712.

Graeme McDowell, whose confidence must have been bruised by missing the cut in Abu Dhabi, needs redemption and quickly. Peter Lawrie, whose excellent closing 67 on Sunday augurs well for the coming weeks and months, hopes to build on that performance and also providing a direct Irish interest in Doha are Damien McGrane, Michael Hoey and Gareth Maybin.

Further encouragement for the Ryder Cup captain is provided by the presence of Sergio Garcia in these tournaments. The Spaniard usually confines himself to the US at this stage of the season, but his presence in the Gulf is largely due to 2010 being a Ryder Cup year. He’s another Montgomerie would like to see play himself into the automatic top nine. Also there will be Abu Dhabi’s central characters, Poulter and Kaymer, along with Paul Casey, Henrik Stenson and Lee Westwood.

Montgomerie is, understandably, keen that all of these players should clinch their places as soon as possible so that he can then tease out the best way in which to use the many talented players who inevitably finish outside the automatic top nine. He has three “wild card” picks and it sounds like he’ll be spoiled for choice.