Dubai: Stephen Gallacher will join an elite list of just five golfers to have won the same European Tour event three times in a row if he can replicate his 2013 and 2014 successes for a unique hat-trick at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic this weekend.
Joining Tiger Woods, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Colin Montgomerie and Ernie Els as treble winners would not only validate the 40-year-old Scot’s ascension, but also see him equal Els’ record of three overall wins at Emirates Golf Club.
However, Gallacher is refusing to get overwhelmed by the prospect of making history, and will instead approach this tournament just like any other.
“They are five exceptional players,” Gallacher said of the hat-trick heroes. “There are plenty of former world No. 1s in there. So that just shows you how hard it is to do.
“But I don’t really think about records. You come to every tournament hopeful and all you can do is prepare properly to win. That’s what you do every week, and it doesn’t happen very often.
“I’ve got expectations of what I want to do this week, but I’m not going to put myself under any more pressure. If it happens, that’s brilliant. But if it doesn’t, as long as I’ve given it my best shot, that’s all I can do.
“I think once you start to get outside of that and start to pick targets and records, I think you can let yourself get distracted. It’s a simple game of just trying to go out there and shoot as low as you can,” added the nephew of former Ryder Cup captain Bernhard.
Asked to explain what it was about the par-72, 7,301-yard Majlis course that had given him so much joy, Gallacher, who finished tied for 33rd in his first event of the 2015 season at the Qatar Masters last weekend, replied: “I think it’s just familiarity. I’m very familiar with the course. Play it a lot, come out here on holiday a lot.
“It kind of suits my eye. It’s quite an old-fashioned course. You have a lot of doglegs, a lot of shaped shots. Kind of the way I grew up playing the game was to shape it both ways.
“I think it’s just a really fair golf course and I think maybe I read the putts well. You get certain places where everything seems to click for you, and I certainly feel good coming here. I’m in a happy state and that always helps.”
Gallacher becoming the first player to successfully defend the Coffee Pot trophy last year preceded a best ever season in 2014, where he finished a career high 16th in the Race to Dubai, 31st in the world rankings and earned his first call-up to Europe’s Ryder Cup squad.
And to win in Dubai again, he said, would act as a catalyst to even greater success.
“To win [here] last year on the 25th anniversary was special, with the field and the sort of history behind it. I took a lot of confidence from that and it set up my best year. I’m hoping to just keep building on that,” he said.
“It helped my attitude, enabled me to feel like I deserved to be up there and playing with these guys, which is a massive thing. It changes the way I approach the week and accept bad shots.
“These are little things that can help me progress to the next level. I’m now 30-odd in the world rankings and I’m trying to improve. I think the next level, to try and get into the top-10, is going to be mental more than anything.
“My target now is to try and get into contention on the weekend at the majors and try and plan my schedule to be as fresh as I can for the last three months of the year — ready for when the Ryder Cup campaign begins again.”
