Well it's great to be back playing competitive golf again after a nice long break over Christmas. The Middle East stretch is one I have always enjoyed, although I have never really gotten much out of it results wise. I was pretty pleased after turning in a top five in Qatar and finishing fifteenth in Dubai. It was good to get out there and test the changes that I had made over Christmas with my golf swing, putting and short game. Everything had to be altered a little bit to find more improvement and consistency, and I think I have achieved that.

I spent a week in Dubai before the Abu Dhabi tournament with my coach Hugh and my bio-mechanics coach Paul, which was very practical and obviously not being able to do much ball beating and short game work in England with the snow, it was great to get back in the sun and back to it and I really felt like it was going well.

In Abu Dhabi I got off to a poor start, which was a shame, as I had been playing really well. I just wasn't ready for the wind that came the first day. I wasn't able to adapt my swing and figure out when things weren't going right in the wind on the first day which unfortunately blew me out of contention and I ended up missing the cut. It was a great learning experience that day as I figured a few things out and went on to play really well on the Friday and following 2 weeks.

Everything started to feel better in Qatar and I played some of my best golf. The first day I shot a 5 under to lead which was probably as high as I could've shot. I played really well in the strong wind that day which was very promising. I played well all week and finished fifth in the end. It was a good consistent week. I struggled on the greens on Sunday, but finished with birdies on the last three holes to salvage a good result.

Dubai was a little rocky the first two days. I played some brilliant golf and some really poor golf mixed in which was not really what I am used to. I dealt with it well and managed to finish on a high on Friday by holing a 40-foot putt on the last to make the cut. I then went on over the weekend to move up 40 spots and claim 15th. However, Tom Watson still managed to beat me by two!! I hope I can play that well at his age.

Over Christmas the new groove rules came into effect. I wasn't quite sure how that was going to pan out and I said that I would let you know what I thought. After this month I have changed my opinion a little bit, I thought to start with that it wasn't going to make much difference but after 3 weeks of tournament golf I haven't seen a ball spin back at all so it's very interesting really. I will have to change my game plan occasionally, but only when the rough is really severe or the greens really hard. I think they will actually have the opposite effect in mainland Europe when we play softer greens as we won't have to worry about the ball spinning excessively.

I do think it will have an impact on the game but how much of it is still down to how much they change the golf courses. I think this Middle East stretch is one where they definitely set up the courses differently to normal, a little bit tougher in the rough. It's put more of a premium on hitting the fairways. I think you have seen that in the quality of the players that have been in contention and the winners; hopefully the European Tour will keep with that.

I had a brief 'fling' with a putter in Dubai - the Odyssey Back Strike which went ok. Thursday was good but Friday was not. I think I need a bit more practice with it but it's something I'm very keen to explore and it's going to be travelling with me for the next few months for definite. At the moment I am back on the Odyssey Sabre Tooth that I have been using for the last couple of years. I put that back in over the weekend in Dubai and it seemed to work well. A little testing is in order there.

Back home now to the cold weather and then over to Arizona for the WGC Match Play in Tucson, which should be fun. My schedule over the next couple of months is still up in the air a little bit; however, I am definitely playing the Match Play, Honda Classic and Doral in the next month. My next event in Europe will be the BMW Championship at Wentworth.

You can now follow me on Twitter. I am doing regular updates at oliver_wilson.

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