It was still dark when Jeev Milkha Singh awakened on Thursday morning. He popped the first of his six pain-relief pills for the day and headed to Abu Dhabi Golf Club for the start of his 2014 season.
India’s best-known golfer, handicapped last year by a persistent shoulder injury, had spent the past week practising up the road in Dubai, putting the strain on a tender rotator cuff; a problem that prevented him from touching a golf club for the previous 20 days.
What he must have thought, then, when he arrived for the first round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship to find the National Course’s rough as wet, long and lush as it has been in its nine-year history.
At times like these, the European Tour should perhaps permit a 15th club in the bag. Best opt for sickle or scythe.
“We’ll take that,” Singh said about his opening 69, which placed him high up the leaderboard, two shots off the lead.
That strong medication was tested as much as his technique, yet he endured a brutal track and emerged relatively pain free.
In contrast, Sergio Garcia’s recent rude health – he has finished ninth, 11th, fourth, second and first in his past five events – began to quickly deteriorate. The Spaniard usually enjoys Abu Dhabi, too, but with the course biting back he registered a four-over-par 76.
A frustrating day at the office was not the only thing ailing him, though. Garcia aggravated an old shoulder injury during Wednesday’s pro-am and, in his words, “the rough this week is not helping it very much”.
Apparently, the thick stuff has been cut backward from green to tee box – it stands 72 millimetres in places - meaning that once the ball nestles, you have to simply whack it or hack it.
“I’d say it’s dangerous,” Garcia said. “Hopefully, nobody else will get injured because it could happen to several guys this week.”
Perhaps his pride hurt more than his body. Top-level players require the wherewithal to adapt to every eventuality, a theory Phil Mickelson plans to adopt in Round 2.
The American found himself deep in the undergrowth more often than not, and Friday’s freshly preened strategy involves sacrificing the driver and 3-wood so tee shots finally find the fairway.
“Your instinct is to hit the shot, but you don’t want to risk injury,” he said after a 73 constructed around 17 consecutive pars. “Gotta keep the ball in play off the tee – there’s no other way around it. There’s nothing unfair about the rough.”
Pressed on how to manage the malaise, he quipped: “Just need to avoid it.”
One final reminder to trade power for precision arrived at the last, when Mickelson felt a twinge in his back as he tried to escape the rough. He should have really known, as on the previous hole he chunked a shot from just off the fairway and advanced it no more than 100 yards. It touched a nerve, all right.
“That’s the best I got right there,” he said.
His playing partner empathised. Rory McIlroy spent 10 long days in Dubai preparing for this event, fastened to a regime that sometimes demanded two 90-minute shifts in the gym.
Some dead-eye driving dictated the scrap between hulk and harvest never materialised, but the world No 7 acknowledged the course is baring more teeth than any of the six times he has played it.
“The set-up’s as tough as it’s ever been,” said McIlroy, whose efficiency off the tee helped him card a 70. “If you miss the fairways, you’re making life very hard for yourself.”
The Northern Irishman is joined on two-under by Martin Kaymer, whose unprecedented three wins in Abu Dhabi make him more qualified than most to portray the current predicament.
“You can compare it with the US Open,” said the German, referencing America’s notoriously unforgiving national championship. “Once you’re in the rough, there’s a good chance you’ll make bogey.”
Bogey represented an alien concept to Marc Warren, who sat briefly atop the standings following a blemish-free 68. However, the Scot reluctantly conceded that courage would give way to conservatism from here on in.
“Just try to be as sensible as I can, which isn’t one of my strongest traits,” Warren said. “I think they’re determined to test us to the limit.”
jmcauley@thenational.ae