Tiger and Kaymer Pre-Tournament Favourites in Dubai

Martin Kaymer and Tiger Woods have been anointed co-favourites heading into a star studded Omega Dubai Desert Classsic, an event Tiger has won twice in the last five years.

Woods simply fell apart on the weekend showing an inability to recover from mistakes, while not being able to hole a putt of any considerable length most of the week.  Although, it’s still no time to jump ship as his work with Sean Foley continues and could certainly yield great results.

Kaymer, meanwhile, started his 2011 season with a win at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship to climb all the way to second in the world behind Lee Westwood pushing Tiger to third.

With the way Kaymer has played the past six months, there really is some validity to the notion that he’ll be the next player to stand at #1 in the world.

Bolstering his chances further this week, he’s had success in Dubai finishing fourth each of the last two years and the way his game is on a serious upswing wouldn’t the logical next step be for him to break through and finally win in the desert?

The books like Rory McIlroy enough to put him ahead of world number one Lee Westwood in their pre-tournament numbers and this confidence is sensibly based on a recent run of stellar results for the young Northern Irishman.

McIlroy hasn’t placed outside the top-6 for five straight events on the Euro Circuit and most recently finished second in Abu Dhabi so it’s no real stretch the bookies put him at (6-1).

Westwood hasn’t garnered much favourite status despite being atop the rankings and that continues this week with bookies only willing to give him (12-1) and just fourth on the betting board.

Now, despite the ranking, it has been well lamented that Westwood can’t close the deal on a regular enough basis to make him a real threat even when it’s almost a shoe-in that he’ll be in the top-20 every week.

He didn’t win on the European Tour last season instead coming up short with six second place finishes.

From the land of long odds.  South African Thomas Aiken goes out at (66-1), but he’s been in the conversation for much of the early 2011 season.

Aiken finished 6th last week in Qatar and 13th the week before at the Volvo Masters in Bahrain.  For a player who was playing on the Sunshine Tour not long ago, his game is trending up and he’s got great value this week worthy of consideration.

When you get to 70, you're allowed a mulligan   - Gary Player