Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
By Kent Gray
He’s the hottest man in world golf and, with a little luck, will ride his rich vein of form all the way back to Emirates Golf Club in early 2021.

OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic Tournament director Simon Corkill has confirmed 2019 champion Bryson DeChambeau headlines his most wanted player list for the 32nd edition of the $3.25 million European Tour event, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28-31.

The 26-year-old Californian captured his sixth PGA Tour win with a brilliant seven-under 65 for a three-stroke victory over Matthew Woolf at the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club overnight.

It continues an extraordinary run for the scientifically reimagined and physically re-engineered Ryder Cupper who is sure to improve from his current position of 10th when the new world rankings are released on Monday (US time). It was DeChambeau’s first victory since his record romp to victory on the Majlis in 2019 and continued his remarkable consistency since the PGA Tour’s return from the coronavirus shutdown; he rattled off  T-3, T-8 and T-6 placings at the Charles Schwab Challenge, the RBC Heritage and Travelers Championship respectively in the lead-up to Detroit and is now up to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings.

DeChambeau’s well documented physical transformation, which has produced increasingly eye-popping distances off the tee and now a win in four straight seasons, has made him the most talked about player in golf. He’s always done things differently and ruffled feathers along his merry way with his mostly open-book methods and once glacial pace of play. And that’s just the ticket for Corkill who is tasked with maintaining the Desert Classic’s own reputation as one of the premier events on what is sure to be a new-look European Tour next year.

Corkill is quietly confident COVID-19 travel restrictions will have eased by Jan. and that DeChambeau’s desire to etch out a reputation as a player who can win around the world will lure the American back to Dubai.

“Bryson is certainly a target for us again. He’s very good for golf,” said Corkill, Executive Tournament Director for Falcon and Associates who also deliver the Dubai Moonlight Classic and Aramco Saudi Ladies International, both LET events.

“He’s obviously been in the headlines a lot the last couple of weeks, obviously playing well. You either love him or hate him but I think he’s fantastic for golf. He’s different, he says what he thinks, he’s a young guy as well so he connects with the younger guys, he talks about a lot of the gaming he plays and that’s the reality for a lot of people. He gets it. I think he’s going to be around for a long time.“

Bryson DeChambeau with the Dallah trophy in 2019.

DeChambeau rewrote the Desert Classic history books with a record score (264,  -24), record final round (64) and record margin (seven strokes over Matt Wallace) en-route to his maiden European Tour win in 2019.

He finished T-8 in defence of the Dallah trophy last year when his physical transformation was taking shape. A dusty closing round of 76 saw him slip down the leaderboard on Sunday but clearly not in Corkill’s estimation.

“The time I spent with him this year, I’ve never seen a player more focused, more dedicated to achieving excellence and good luck to him,” Corkill said.

“Elite sport is decided by the finest margins and if his way is to bulk up, hit the ball much further, get the club speed going up…it’s obviously doing something good for him.

“Even this year he was practicing with a 4½ degree driver at Emirates and constantly coming in saying ‘I’m not quite there, not quite there’ which probably showed in his final round. I think he’s playing a 5 ½ degree driver now and put on another 20 pounds (9kg) …but wow, he’s come out all guns blazing. The proof is in the pudding. He’ll obviously be in contention in the majors this year.”

Corkill remains hopeful of another stellar cast for the Desert Classic despite the rapidly evolving, albeit currently geographically constrained, shape of professional golf.

“We had a fantastic field last year and we still plan to bring in international players as well as the great European Tour players. “It’s definitely still the goal [attracting marquee players],” Corkill said.

“The commitment stage has been pushed back because a lot of the meetings usually happen at the [cancelled] Open Championship. Those are obviously not going to happen now but a lot of managers are saying let’s just get past the PGA Tour end of season, past the FedEx Cup. But everyone is engaged, they want to come. The field will be very strong. It’s just locking people down.

“We’ve got some locked down which we obviously haven’t announced yet but we’ve got at least seven or eight great players that are locked in and if we said right, there’s no one else who is going to play, so be it. We’d still have a good field, not as strong as we obviously want, but if we had to not commit to other players going forward, we’d still have a fantastic field.

“There’s some young players in there that are going to be in the top 10 in the world within a couple of years to be honest.”

Australian Lucas Herbert is the defending OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic champion.