Lee flew out on Friday, to take advantage of practising prior to the event.  This week, Dr Steve McGregor (see Fitness page), will accompany him.  Lee also managed to pay a visit to the races and on Sunday played a round with jockey, Frankie Detorri (who won in the feature race on Thursday at the Dubai International Racing Carnival).  

Click here for Leaderboard,    Lee's card

With Oliver Wilson and Retief Goosen, Lee has tee-times of 7.45 (GMT + 3hrs) from the 10th on Thursday and 11.55 from the 1st on Friday.  Lee finished in 5th place here, last year.

Lee played a fine, bogey free round, with two birdies on the outward nine (16 and 18) and three on the way home (4,6 and 7).  His round of 67 and 5-under for the day, saw him finish at half way in T2nd spot , trailing the leader by one shot. Lee  ended the day in T4th spot, still one shot behind a three-way tie for lead position.

"I'm delighted with the way I played today", Lee commented.  "I have not practiced a lot in the time over Christmas, three or four weeks, I guess it was. I didn't really know what to expect but I was doing a lot of gym work in the three and a half weeks and that sort of keeps me -- I don't get as rusty as I used to when I take time off.

Today I had a new PING Rapture V2 driver in and a new set of S57 irons and new putter, new wedges. All in all, really good.
I started off really well with a good drive down 10 and didn't make birdie, hit it on to the front in two, and had a couple more chances. After six holes, I thought it was going to be one of those slow starts to the year where I'm a bit rusty, but it all came good in the end.

I've been practicing with the new clubs a little bit, as far back as August last year, hitting a few balls and getting a feel. But there's no substitute for actually playing a competitive round...  So that was my first competitive round today. I'm quite pleased. Hit a couple of poor iron shots but the old set has more cavity-back and these are more blade-back, and they are a little bit better out of the rough, as well.
I've been with PING for 20-odd years now, since I was 15 years old, and.  I know they make good equipment and I've never had any problems changing. I've changed putters and I've changed driver once or twice. I was particularly impressed with this driver when I started using it.

I think the course is excellent. It's in great condition. Better than last year, but I know the reasons why the course wasn't in great condition last year, because of the lack of water in the preceding months. It's set up just the way I think we'd all like it. If you miss a fairway, you get penalised, which you should do. The greens are true. The putts will go in if they are on line, and the greens, they don't spike up. If it carries on blowing at the strength it's supposed to blow this week, 15 to 20 miles an hour, it will provide a stiff test. Obviously if the wind drops, people can do to it what Adam Scott did last year with a 61. But with some wind around here, it can be a demanding test of golf".

Following his second round Lee said that he played poorly for the first twelve holes and didn't drive well, findng only 5 out of 14 fairways (and only hitting 9 greens).
At the turn he was four over (40 on the outward nine). A birdie at the 10th was followed by a bogey at 11. By the 12th, he felt he had sorted himself out and made nice ten foot putts at 16 and 17 and a short putt for birdie at the last.  He felt quite happy with himself, when he finished his round of  73, (one over for the round), he told his Dad, John, later.  Now 4 under par, Lee lies in T16th place on the leaderboard.

 Lee had a 10.37 tee-time with Robert Karlsson for the third round and carded another flawless round of 67, with birdies at 1,6,11,12 and 16. Now 9-under par, he lies in T6th place.

Brother-in-law, Andrew Coltart, joined Lee for the final round at 12.07 on Sunday. Lee only managed to add two bogeys to his card (74) and so had to settle for 7-under for the event.  Finishing in T27th place earned him €17,638.12 in prize money and 35th position in the Race to Dubai. And it's off to Dubai for the next event.