Spaniards Garcia and Cabrera-Bello on form in Omega Dubai Desert Classic press conferences
With a broad smile lighting up his face, Rafael Cabrera-Bello walked off the Majlis course to see his name on top of the leaderboard in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club on February 12, 2012. That was more pleasing to him was the way he got there.
The Spaniard had just upstaged three of the world’s top four at the time — Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy and Martin Kaymer — to register the biggest win of his career since turning pro in 2005.
With his confidence on a high, he will be hoping to revive that memory and become the first back-to-back winner of the longest-running European Tour event in the region since its inception in 1989.
“Coming back 12 months later I knew I was going to like the feeling, but I didn’t know it was going to be so good here, seeing my face all over the place and everything, it’s very fun,” said Cabrera-Bello, who is yet to finish outside the top 25 this season.
“Winning here gave me a quality jump in my game, in my World Ranking. It opened the door to play some of the biggest events in golf such as the World Golf Championships and the Major Championships,” said Cabrera-Bello — the fifth Spanish player to win Omega Dubai Desert Classic following Seve Ballesteros in 1992, José María Olazábal in 1998, Miguel Angel Jiménez in 2010 and Alvaro Quiros in 2011.
“The Spanish domination in this event is a pretty much a coincidence. It’s very, very hard to win any where, and it’s rare for three guys from one country to win in a row.
“The reason I play golf is thanks to [José María] Olazábal, who I saw win The Masters in ’94 and ’99. That’s definitely what made me dream about being a pro.
“I also remember growing up watching videos of Seve [Ballesteros]. I didn’t get to see him play live in his prime, but I did watch plenty of videos. The way he re-invented golf was obviously something that no Spaniard and no European, or no one in the world will forget.”
His fellow countryman Sergio Garcia, who has returned to Emirates Golf Club for a sixth time, sounded confident of maintaining the form he showed in finishing tied second at last week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, just one shot behind England’s Chris Wood.
“I like the course. I’ve played okay for the most part here so I’m looking forward to it. Obviously coming off a good week last week I’m hoping to keep those good feelings going and give myself a chance on the weekend like I did last week.”
Meanwhile, Chris Wood feels a good showing in Dubai will help him move up another 10 places on the world rankings to earn a ticket to the Masters, the season’s first Major Championship.
“I’ve watched the Masters since I was about five years old,” said Wood, who played at Augusta National in 2010 courtesy of his tied third place finish in The Open Championship the year before.
“It’s the first Major of the season and it’s the one that everyone wants to play in. So the Masters is the one on the horizon at the moment. That will be the first thing, to try to get into that.
“We have a good field this week so there’s more World Ranking points available,” said Wood, who eagled the closing hole to beat Garcia in the Qatar Masters.
His victory drew praise from far and wide, and he added: “Gary Player sent me a Tweet. I didn’t see it at first but then my mate texted me to tell me so I got online and saw it. It just said congratulations on your first win, there should be many more to come. And he is now following me on Twitter which is pretty surreal really.”
