The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship celebrates its 20th edition this week at Yas Links.
The event was first staged in 2006 and that week DP World Tour commentary team members Nicolas Colsaerts, Nick Dougherty, David Howell and Jamie Spence all teed it up.
So we decided to get them together to discuss their days in the desert at Abu Dhabi Golf Club and Yas Links over the years.
Nicolas Colsaerts: It was great to add a week to the Desert Swing
Nick Dougherty: Yeah, trying to put another one next to the Dubai Desert Classic which is really hard to live up to, I felt it was going to be a tall order. But I thought it was harder. As somebody who didn't drive it that straight, I remember thinking in those early days when people didn't hit quite as far...
Jamie Spence: It was a monster!
ND: It was a monster and if you miss the fairways you're in big trouble. I remember first week out of the year, it was a tough place to start.
JS: What I remember is staying in the Palace hotel.
ND: Oh yeah! And if your key stopped working you had to walk the seven miles back to reception to get a new one.
JS: And the rooms were just gold encrusted with a butler.
NC: Do you remember the monitor for the lights and the TV and everything? It was like the predecessor of the iPad.
David Howell: Can you remember who won?
ND & JS: Chris DiMarco.
ND: It's an event that has always had great champions. Gary Stal stands out as the one that would be an unlikely winner but a lot of big names, Major Champions won it.
NC: Martin Kaymer won it three times. Rickie Fowler won.
ND: Paul Casey.
JS: Commentary-wise, when Kaymer was leading by ten...
ND: That was Stal, mind-blowing. Unbelievable. Of all the guys to capitulate.
NC: And it was always a great course. It was always a super selective course. In my case, because I was tee to green, it was a course where I was like 'let's go'.
ND: With your length off the tee as well. It was beefy for that time. That's what was weird in recent years, is that it wasn't that before they came to Yas.
JS: 17 over the water into the wind. It was 'hmm?', certainly for me it was.
NC: Even the one before that into the wind.
JS: And none of this was here (on Yas island). This was just a pipe dream.
DH: I had a chance to win it one year (2013). I was in the lead playing the 13th and then I four-putted from six feet! I think I finished sixth. A full disaster. Jamie, you had bragging rights in 2006 out of the four of us, 35th you were. Nico, you were 40-something, and me and you Nick, MC Hammer.
ND: I didn't miss the cut! I very rarely missed cuts (laughter).
JS: I can't believe I made the cut. Better then my average.
ND: The greens were so pure as well, the condition was great.
DH: The years they over-seeded it, if you got in that rough... Proper golf course.
JS: I think if you went forward from when we first played it to when the lads played it say six, seven years later. The difference in how they made it look, especially off the tee.
ND: Do you remember, less so for you Nick, but we'd stand on the tenth, the par five. You know how narrow that area was to hit. If you missed the fairway, to try and hit that green in three was hard because you'd only get it 100 yards down there out of that rough. It was brutal, like a Major test straight out of the blocks for the season. A great place to start.
DH: I remember when they put the new tee in on 11. You could sneak it round the corner from the old tee and when they put that tee back over the car park, I wasn't too pleased with that move because I'm not reaching the green from the rough.
NC: Five was long. Even I remember hitting five irons and four irons into that hole into the wind.
ND: Do we think this is a better course at Yas Links?
NC: They're incomparable.
ND: They're so different. Where would you rather have played?
NC: I've had a soft spot for the other one because it was extremely rewarding to the good parts of my game: long off the tee, pretty straight and hit a lot of greens. Here, the DNA of the winning formula is something else. It's who gets it around the hole quicker and better and gets it up and down and reads the landscape better. It's two very different courses.
DH:This course is just so scenic isn't it? It's amazing for the cameras.
NC: It's beautiful.
JS: The views are incredible here.
ND: When we started, 14 or 16 under was a good score but in the later years it was over 20 to win it at Abu Dhabi Golf Club. It was 24 under here last year but that was unusual.
DH: When the wind doesn't blow...
NC: There was no wind last year. If the wnd doesn't blow it gets murdered because it's so wide and the fairways being sdo tidy it just rolls. If you have a flat ttrajectory with the driver you can get it to run 20, 30, 40 at times. The perfect example is 12, it's just like a Heathrow runway, it can run 40. If you have the legs to carry the left, you can hit it 350 eyes closed.
DH: It's a good finish here with the short par four at 14 and then back into the wind coming in 16, 17, 18. 18 is a good hole, I like it as a closer, it gives you options.
NC: I think the idea is amazing, off the tee where you have this bonus lane down the left to make the second shot shorter which is a ggreat idea and had to be extended because it was too skinny. But the angle to the green, as we've seen over the years, there are so many guys thhat bail out right. it's difficult to find that length, it's not quite open enough.
ND: It's a fitting event to move to the importance of where it is now, the penultimate event of the season, a pivotal one. Considering it's so young, it's only 20 years old but it's a top event.
JS: It was an event that everyone woould ruush to early in the season because it was absolutely sensational to practise here.
NC: And also because of that strech for the Desert Swing.
DH: It's perfect now isn't it? After a year of travelling you get here for two weeks to finish off, it's nice.
NC: These two weeks, down the road, it's easy, it's nice. You've got two immaculate golf courses to play on for the biggest purses of the year. Yes please.
DH: Those were the days, my friend.
