Qatar Masters 2015 Preview

Sergio Garcia is hoping that the "good memories" of his victory in the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters last year will help him take a leaf out of Jimmy Walker's book.

Walker successfully defended his Sony Open title on the US PGA Tour in Hawaii last week and Garcia is hoping to do the same thing on The European Tour this week when he defends his Qatar Masters title at the Doha Golf Club.

“I came close to winning a few times,"  Garcia told the media on Monday when referring to the fact that he has finished in the top 10 in each of his last four appearances in Doha, "So it was nice to get over the line last year.

"I played really well on the last day to get into the play-off, then had to play really well all over again to beat Mikko (Ilonen).So I have some good memories, and hopefully they can inspire me to have another successful week.”

The book makers have unanimously established Garcia's as their 7/1 Doha favourite, but there's more to it than the mere fact that he has a liking for a venue where he has started the new season for "the last few years" and now owns the title.

The Spanish star, one of the game's finest players never to have won a major, has been in excellent form during the past year and many believe that his recent upsurge which could well carry him to his first major this year, has a lot to do with personal happiness - he is soon to be wed to fiancée Katharina Boehm who has caddied for him in the past and is with him in Doha.

He has seldom driven the ball straighter, hit tighter irons or putted with more effect than he did last year and it is certainly not for nothing that he is right up there among the world’s top 10 in the No 6 slot

Mind you, he's not the highest ranked player in the field this week.

Swede Henrik Stenson, the World No 2, and Justin Rose at No 5, are both ranked higher on the World Ranking list, but have been given lesser odds, Rose being the bookies second favourite at 8/1 and Stenson their third at 11/1.

Then there's quite a gap behind the favoured trio.

Charl Schwartzel, a top-tenner in each of the last two weeks, is at 18/1, fellow South African Branden Grace at 25/1 and Danish young gun Thorbjorn Olesen at 30/1.

But a man who might be an excellent bet if his game is working for him this week is Belgium Ryder Cup star Nicolas Colsaerts at 40/1.

The at 7 437 yards the championship course at Doha Golf Club is one of the longest on the European Tour - and nobody in the world, Bubba Watson included, hits the ball further than Colsaerts. The question here is can Colsaerts rekindle the spark that he seemed to lose while playing in the USA last year.

Stenson is another who hits his tee shots a long way, often with a three wood, and Rose, a former US Open champion, is no slouch either with his driver, so perhaps these two highly-ranked antagonists will provide Garcia with his sternest opposition as he attempts to bag a second successive Qatar Masters title.

The wind at Doha can often be a major factor in who wins and who loses, but this is not likely to be the case this year. The forecast is for light winds of no more than 10 -  11 km/h on each of the four days of the tournament and this opens up the contest to a wider range of players with young guns like Denmark's Thorbjorn Olesen, Frenchman Alexander Levy, Austrian Bernd Wiesberger and American Peter Uihlein all coming strongly into the picture.

And best not write off some of the tour's more senior players like Fin Ilonen who, after all, did go all the way to a tough play-off with Garcia at Doha last year, Swedish veteran Robert Karlsson, a one-time European No 1 and the 2010 winner here who is beginning to play some good golf again after a spell in the wilderness and perhaps even former World No 1 Ernie Els, the Qatar Masters winner in 2006.

Then again, if the European Tour's first two tournaments of 2015 are a pointer, this week's Doha winner might well be a talented but relatively unknown golfer in the calibre of England's Andy Sullivan, who stunned Schwartzel at the South African Open, or Frenchman Gary Stal who edged out Martin Kaymer at Abu Dhabi on Sunday after the German, with a 10-shot lead early in the final round, had looked to be the runaway winner.

If everything comes in threes, as some believe, it begs the question: which of the big-guns on show at Doha GC this week is going to be blown away on the final stretch? And who will his humble assassin?

Sullivan and Stal are in the Doha field, but expecting another stunner so soon after their big breakthroughs might just be asking a little too much - although you can never be sure of anything in the game of golf. Can you?

QATAR MASTERS BETTING ODDS:

These were Bet365's Top 15 on Tuesday morning. For all the bookmakers' odds, you should go to http://www.oddschecker.com/golf/qatar-masters/winner.

Sergio Garcia     7/1
Justin Rose        8/1
Henrik Stenson 11/1
Charl Schwartzel 18/1
Branden Grace  25/1
Thorbjorn Olesen 30/1
Alexander Levy 33/1
Ross Fisher       33/1
Bernd Wiesberger 40/1
Mikko Ilonen     40/1
Marcel Siem       40/1
Nicolas Colsaerts 40/1
George Coetzee    50/1
Peter Uihlein     50/1
Robert Karlsson   40/

For any feedback or ideas you are welcome to email: neville@golfweather.com.