Andrew's UAE Challenge Preview - HPT (2025)

This week’s preview will be fairly truncated, for three reasons. First, you’re all thinking about The Masters. Me too (g’wan, Scottie!) Second, it is the Easter holidays in the UK and my life has gone from chaotic to utterly bonkres. Third, I’m on a hellish run on of form. I still believe in what I’m doing but the results just aren’t there. Let’s hope we can turn it around today. It certainly didn’t happen for us over on the Korn Ferry Tour, where Ryan Blaum lurked just out of contention for most of the tournament after a great opening round and a mediocre second round. Ultimately, the leaderboard looked much as I thought it would – with a number of wily veterans lurking around the top of the board. Unfortunately it was Russell Knox and Rick Lamb, not Tyler Duncan and Ryan Blaum. Such is life. 

Lots to like about the youngish winner, Jeremy Gandon, a Frenchman who has been mostly on the PGA Tour of the Americas – and the Latin American Tour/Canadian Tour in an earlier incarnation – with a few spells on the KFT. He was a solid but unspectacular amateur at Kansas State but he’s shown he knows his game at this level, let’s see if he can put a few more results together and join the notable French wave on both sides of the Atlantic that’s been cresting over the last few years. However, time is short so let’s move back to the Hotel Planner Tour, which returns from another break and is in the Middle East for back-to-back tournaments in the UAE before the European Season starts next month.

The Tournament

With no co-sanctioning from PGTI or Sunshine, we have a fuller field of HPT regulars, albeit with 30 invitations handed out by the local federations. This is more the sort of field we can expect for the rest of the season and there are going to be a few new faces, some of whom are pretty talented and potentially underrated. We’re also seeing a new course, which changes the research.

This is Al Zorah Golf and Yacht Club. The astute reader will note the word yacht and correctly infer that we’re on the coast – but it is a bit more complicated than that. This is actually a well-established course by regional standards, and it has been winding it’s way through a mangrove swamp since. The course is a Jack Nicklaus design and so far as I can see it has only hosted small local tournaments to date, so we’re into the unknown a little and relying on satellite images and reviews.

We do know that it plays to around 7,200 yards as an orthodox par 72, and we know that, as a Nicklaus design, it can be expected to have widish fairways and a focus on approach shots into well-guarded greens. The natural stuff is very different from my last preview of a Nicklaus course, when we were down in Delhi, as this is swampy (there are two lakes as well as the mangrove areas,) as well as the flamboyant Nicklaus bunkering – 88 here. The lakes and tidal waste areas are vast and the course itself covers a huge area, with holes playing in all kinds of directions. It looks entertaining and not like a typical desert course. With weather (warm, light winds, dry, consistent) unlikely to be a factor and very few of the field having experience, I’m looking for strong iron players, ideally with some experience of desert golf but also, perhaps counter-intuitively, of Florida golf. This looks Floridian to me. All the previews talk about difficult chipping and putting but it is very hard to know how the professionals will take to it. My guess is that we will see some pretty low scoring, but that is a guess.

The Selections

With a market headed by Max Steinlechner (love the player, hate the price,) George Coetzee (form is there but surely he can’t keep doing this, can he?) Jamie Rutherford (I can’t shake the belief there’s always someone better than him in the field, but that looks less and less tenable a theory) and Joshua Berry (again, just too short for me though this is quite a good fit) there is nobody who isn’t an each-way price. There also isn’t a lot to go on so I’m following my gut and trying to find players where I love the value.

First of these is Dan Erickson, who as a Texas A&M golfer played plenty of Florida and similar golf in the SEC – including a sixth in the SEC Championship on St. Simon Island (Georgia) and a win in Louisiana. He’s played plenty of desert golf in his short but varied career, too, and most importantly of all he’s just a very good golfer. After winning his DPWT card last autumn he has split his time between the majors and the minors, recently finishing sixth against a better field on a similar course (designed by Andy Dye so a similar style, also paspalum, long, flat and on reclaimed land.) Quite simply, I expected a shorter price and he’s a confident pick.

Among the short-priced players, my favourite is once again Adri Arnaus, who has been expensive to follow thus far but has wonderful results in this part of the world, with third places just up the road in the Dubai Desert Classic, as well as in the Saudi Invitational. He is showing signs of a return to form with a good result in Delhi, and a continued focus on ball-striking and a return to the UAE can lead to great things.

Finally, but by no means least, I’m taking a price and backing a theory I first espoused back before the season started -  in fact, lets run the quote: “Finally, Albin Bergrstrom is among the players joining following a successful year on the Nordic Golf League, increasingly the golden highway to success on the Challenge Tour. He had a little joy in 2023 on the Challenge Tour but can go better the second time around (as he proved with an 11th and 23rd from three CT starts last season.) He is another who can fall back on the lessons of a stellar college career, having starred at the University of South Florida.” Yes, Southern Florida. I didn’t know there were mangroves in Dubai, I do know there are mangroves in Florida. A belated first start of the year on the HPT for one of my big names to follow, and he’s on an ideal course, and the price is a total gift. Thank you very much.

• Adri Arnaus, 25/1, 1pt e/w, Bet365, ¼ odds 5 places

• Dan Erickson, 90/1, 1pt e/w, Unibet, 1/5 odds 6 places

• Albin Bergstrom, 200/1, 1pt e/w, Bet365, ¼ odds 5 places