Dubai is one of my favourite places – wonderful golf courses and restaurants, excellent shopping and plenty of everything you could want for a break from life on the golfing road.

It’s where I headed after a very average finish in Abu Dhabi, but before I could totally chill out it was a pleasure to be part of a pro-am at Dubai Creek hosted by the chairman of ISM, Abdullah Al Naboodah. Abdullah loves his golf and we had an excellent day made all the more pleasurable by me shooting 63 to tie the pro-am with a certain Lee Westwood.

Even in my weeks off, golf is never far from the agenda and last Wednesday I headed back to Abu Dhabi for a beach party in conjunction with the opening of Gary Player’s new course at Saadiyat Resort. Gary has created a sensational course and it was my pleasure to tell him so afterwards.  There was a gala dinner on Thursday and then it was back to Dubai where mum and dad arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Like me, dad enjoys his fishing and Abdullah very kindly put his 62ft sport fishing boat at our disposal.  I managed to land a barracuda, but the prize catch was a queenfish, all nine kilos of it.  Dad also reeled in another big one and all in all it was a fantastic day out.

The reason I could spend some time in Dubai ahead of this week’s Desert Classic was because I elected to skip Qatar.   It’s a wonderful golf course there and a great tournament, but for me it’s normally been a two-day event so I decided to miss it this year – a move which allows me the chance to play in India next week.

India is embracing golf more and more and I’m looking forward to my visit – not least for the likelihood of shedding a few more pounds to add to the 21 that have been discarded during my latest health and fitness regime.

Now I’m only concentrating on one of our biggest events of the year because I’m hoping to accelerate my advance up the world rankings.