Open champion Henrik Stenson admits he will be trying considerably harder to win the DP World Tour Championship this week than he was 12 months ago.
Stenson was chasing a third straight victory at Jumeirah Golf Estates last year, but saw his hopes effectively ended by an opening 77, his worst score by four shots in the European Tour's season finale.
The 40-year-old went on to finish joint last in the 60-man field as he felt the effects of a long season, which was still two weeks away from completion and due to be followed by a knee operation in December.
The same knee has been giving Stenson problems this season as well, but he hopes to avoid any further surgery and finish the season as European number one for the second time in four years.
Asked about his performance last year, Stenson joked: " You mean when I had to stand on my head to see myself on top of the leaderboard?
"Yeah, mainly I put it down to me being pretty flat when I came here. I had been out for a few weeks on the road and I think I was just running out of steam. Didn't get off to a great start, and after that, it was hard to come back.
"I know I can play well around here, I think I've got a good game plan in place and I'm going to go out there and try and execute it. And even if I don't play my best, I'm probably going to try a little bit harder than I did last year for the final two rounds."
Masters champion Danny Willett had led the money list since winning his first major title at Augusta, but was finally overtaken at the end of October when he was 75th in the 78-man field at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, where Stenson finished joint second.
Willett also failed to take advantage of Stenson's absence from the Turkish Airlines Open, but kept his Ryder Cup team-mate in his sights with closing rounds of 67 and 69 in last week's Nedbank Golf Challenge.
That restricted Stenson's lead to 299,675 points, although with more than 1.2million on offer to the winner in Dubai, Willett knows a victory would give him a maiden Race to Dubai title.
" I'm in a great position," Stenson added. "I couldn't have asked for anything better. When I took off to China three weeks ago I was hoping to make up some ground.
"I managed to have a great week in Shanghai and finished second there to overtake Danny and managed to stay ahead, as well. That's all I wanted to do.
"I wanted to be in a position where I had it in my own hands knowing that if I win here, that would seal the deal, and I'm in an even better position given that I don't necessarily need to win, even though that's kind of my mindset coming in here."
Source: PA
