Golfers to watch in Abu Dhabi

Koepka returns to Abu Dhabi for the first time since 2014. He made a premature departure that year, killing 77-73 to end up under the line. Now he will try to make his reputation as a triple big winner.

Image Credit Sam Greenwood / Getty Images

Martin Kaymer

The twofold great champion reigned Abu Dhabi once and won three times in his first five appearances. He remains the only triple champion of the event, but has been inconsistent ever since, with three top-six finishes but also three out of the top 25.

Kaymer, 34, will compete for the first time since the European final Tour last year in Dubai, where he was 55th in a 60-man field. It was a frustrating 2018 around Kaymer, who spent four weeks in the spring with wrist problems and missed 12 cuts at 23 starts worldwide when he returned.

Image Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images

Louis Oosthuizen

An emotional victory at his native South African Open helped Oosthuizen in 2018 to a good end, where he separated himself on the last day to become only the sixth man to his name on both the Open Trophy and the Claret Jug of the British Open

Oosthuizen, 36, also placed a seventh one week later at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, making him four top 10 finishes worldwide in his last five starts of the year. He previously played Abu Dhabi and earned a second place in 2009 behind Paul Casey, but this is his first visit since 2011.

Image Credit Christiaan Kotze / EPA, via Shutterstock

Lee Westwood

The 45-year-old Englishman showed that he is still a factor by winning the Nedbank Challenge last November, duels with Oosthuizen and Sergio Garcia on the last day to end a three-and-a-half-year drought that was the longest since a career battle in the mid-2000s. It was his 24th victory in the European Tour

Westwood shared the second prize in its 2008 debut in Abu Dhabi, but with only one top-15 finish since then. In the past three years, he has wedged a tie in 2017 between a few missed cuts.

Image Credit Andrew Yates / Reuters

Henrik Stenson

One of only a handful of players who have participated every year since the beginning of the tournament, Stenson remains looking for his first victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club. Until the debut last year of the NBO Oman Open, it was the only Middle East event that Stenson did not win.