Dubai - Arabstoday
A tough challenge awaits Alvaro Quiros when he gets set to defend his title at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic beginning Thursday. Not in his best of forms after two bad outings at Abu Dhabi and then Qatar, the new season has not started well. But Quiros is confident of overcoming all the flaws and beginning afresh. He said: \"That was the first tournament (Abu Dhabi) of the year. I was a little bit rusty. I wasn\'t practising a lot in the winter time. And Qatar, it was a very strange tournament, three rounds, a lot of wind and I wasn\'t playing great. Fight against self \"A lot of different things are going on. Qatar has been a golf course that I\'ve been very successful in the past. So it was a little bit of fight against myself constantly because I wanted to really go forward, and the scores were not good enough to do it. \"So it was just another week. This week is going to be different for sure, for many reasons. First of all, I\'m not going to have the same mistakes as last week. I\'ll try to be in the top of the leaderboard from the first hole, because it\'s stupid to think about it. I\'m hitting the ball good. My coach is here, and I\'m putting good. So I just believe that it\'s going to happen,\" added the 28-year-old. After winning the 2011 Dubai Desert Classic following a thirlling final round, Quiros was also the champion at the season-ending Dubai World Championship. \"I am feeling good about my game, and it feels great to come back on a golf course where you have done well before. Having said that, just because I have won here before does not mean I will do well again. \"Golf can be a funny game, one week you can struggle and the very next week, all the putts start to drop and you win by 10 shots. I am proud to be the defending champion here, because not many players can go around claiming that honour this week. But that win was a year ago, and this is now.\"