ABU DHABI: After winning his maiden title in 2011 at the age of 33, Robert Rock's fortunes are definitely on the way up as he secured his second victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.
The Englishman sealed the title finishing one shot ahead of Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy after carding a 13-under.
The win was more special since he had the opportunity to rub shoulders with his favourite golfer, Tiger Woods, in the final round. "Could be the best thing to happen," he said.
"It's pretty hard to believe that I managed to win. Very surprised, but I played good. But it's difficult playing with Tiger. You expect almost every shot to threaten to go in. It felt a lot of pressure and couldn't afford any lapses in concentration at all.
"So a lot of hard work but very happy. It will take a few days to contemplate winning this. It's such a good field and it's somewhere I've not really played well before, so it's a surprise."
This was Rock's second European Tour victory in his 227th event after he had won the BMW Italian Open last year. "I felt like I got better after I had a good tournament in Dubai. That was a tournament that I had not really done well in the past and putted well there. I felt like if that was a little bit of a confidence boost, that I could play well in that type of course; and this is similar.
"I can play decent golf around these types of courses. And two good results in South Africa made me feel that form was still improving from the end of last year," added Rock, who also posted his second consecutive top-eight finish in a European Tour event staged in the desert, having finished eighth in the Dubai World Championship last year.
Despite Woods finishing tied third at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Rock was confident the former world number one was getting back to his best. "I'm pretty convinced that Sean Foley ‘Woods' swing coach] knows what he's doing. He's [Woods] definitely playing better. Maybe didn't play as well as he would have liked to, but his stats earlier in the week, his driving accuracy was good, his greens in regulation was good and he was hitting the ball very well. So there's no doubt about that.
"I think I watched his very first tournament win. And then obviously his first Masters win. But I've watched pretty much everything he's done. So everybody's a fan of Tiger Woods. He's won 98 tournaments," added Rock.
