By Kent Gray
Clark Dennis flew under the radar at last year’s Sharjah Senior Golf Masters but there’s zero chance of a repeat when the American tees it up in the second edition of the Staysure Tour event on Thursday week.

The 52-year-old Texan finished T-19 in the season opener at Sharjah Golf & Shooting Club last March having qualified for the Staysure (formerly European Senior) Tour via Q-School a month earlier. But Dennis was merely warming to his task and went on to claim the John Jacobs Trophy as the tour’s money-list champion for 2017. He won twice at the rain-shortened Senior Italian Open (in a playoff from Peter Fowler) and Dutch Masters late in the season and complied a thoroughly impressive total of eight top-5 finishes in his 14 starts to bank €222,055 (AED 815,496).

“I think my goals for this year are the same – to prepare well and play every tournament like I’m trying to win. I think most guys out on Tour do that,” said Dennis who finished the season with a 70.44 stroke average. “I think the best thing I can do is to try and replicate the things I did last year. You never know if you can achieve what you want to – every year and every week is different – but I’m looking forward to it.”

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Dennis bounced between the PGA and Nationwide (now Web.com) Tours for a decade from 1990 and won the Nationwide Tour’s Bakersfield Open in 1993 following a three-way playoff that included current US Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk. He counts a pair of T-3 finishes – at the 1990 Hawaiian Open and 1998 Kemper Open – as his best finishes on the main tour but his standout result was perhaps a share of 6th (with Greg Norman and Tom Watson) in the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club won by Ernie Els.

He can’t wait to return to Sharjah after his three-under effort last year.

“It was really interesting to begin the season playing a nine hole golf course and I think the Tour and the staff there did a fantastic job in setting it up for a tournament. It’s a very good golf course with some interesting holes and I think it’s a good venue,” Dennis said.

“Last year I was only in the UAE for the week of the tournament but I did manage to do my fair share of sightseeing on the days I wasn’t playing. I went and saw the Burj Khalifa and it was fascinating; really to think that the whole place was built out of nothing in the desert, it’s quite an accomplishment. It was my first ever trip out to the Middle East and thankfully it’s not my last.

“In the past few weeks I’ve played a pro-am in Mexico and I’ve been to Florida so I’ve had some warm-weather golf already this year to get some practise in. I’m going to be ready to go in Sharjah.”